Ouaga eats outdoors. Between the soumbala pyramids of Gounghin, the nuns' kitchen at L'Eau Vive and the dolotières brewing sorghum beer in Tanghin courtyards, three days here map a cuisine built on millet, shea butter and smoke.
Ouaga's busiest neighbourhood market opens at dawn: pyramids of soumbala (fermented néré balls), shea butter, dried okra and tô flour. Traders ladle benga — rice and black-eyed beans — from enamel bowls under the awnings from 07:00.
Run by the Sisters of the Missionary Fraternity in a walled courtyard near the cathedral, this table serves capitaine fish, riz gras and poulet yassa. Service pauses each evening at 21:00 when the nuns sing the Ave Maria with diners.
Dapoya's covered market is the spice and smoked-fish corner of the city: bundles of dried kapok flowers for sauce, smoked capitaine from Lake Bagré, gnamakoudji ginger root and deep-red bissap calyces sold by the kilo from raffia sacks.
Dolo — sorghum beer brewed by women known as dolotières — is served warm in shared calabashes at courtyard cabarets across Tanghin. Brewing runs on a three-day cycle, so each compound sells only on its own day.
The avenue landmark, rebuilt after the 2016 attack, pours proper espresso alongside a Burkinabè breakfast of millet zoom-koom, beignets and omelette-baguette. Terrace tables look straight down the city's main boulevard.
A walled compound in Zone du Bois pairing a Sahelian art gallery with a kitchen that does kedjenou, guinea fowl braised in shea butter and groundnut sauce spooned over tô. Tables sit under neem trees in the garden.
The national brewery east of the centre produces Brakina and Sombre lagers plus Castel under licence. Weekday plant visits run by written request, ending in a tasting hall where bottles arrive straight off the line at 4°C.
Long-running French-Burkinabè table on Rue Joseph Badoua, known for Nile perch from Lake Bagré in beurre blanc, guinea fowl with shea butter and a wine cellar unusual for the Sahel. Dining room is air-conditioned.
The northern grain market is where millet, sorghum, fonio and maize arrive by donkey cart from the Plateau Central. Women pound millet into flour on the spot, and degué — millet couscous in soured yoghurt — is sold in knotted plastic bags.
Tampouy's roadside grills are the home of poulet bicyclette — lean free-range chicken, flattened, grilled slowly over wood coals and dressed with piment and raw onion. A half bird with attiéké takes about 25 minutes to come off the fire.
The French Institute's shaded café is the city's food-talk hub, serving bissap, bouye baobab juice and croque-monsieur beside a bookshop. The programme runs cooking demonstrations and food-themed film nights in Fespaco season.
The Patte d'Oie district south of the centre strings together open-air maquis where Brakina arrives in crates of iced litre bottles and beef brochettes come off the grill by the skewer, often until 02:00.