The Mozambique capital has excellent seafood and typically warm, spicy flavours, and these days you can do vegan and vegetarian, Asian, East African and traditional with a twist. As Maputo gears up for a hot and sultry summer, think lighter eating, fresh and seasonal, and a trip to the central market.

On a hot day, the CK Café in the upmarket suburb of Sommerschield is a really delightful way to lunch lightly and mindfully in Maputo. CK Café has a mainly vegan and vegetarian menu, and they offer a selection of fish and chicken, no meat. There are huge decorative glass jars of carrots, apples and oranges on a counter as you walk in. The pratos do dia (menu of the day) is chalked up on a blackboard in the shaded verandah, where tables and chairs overlook a swimming pool. The décor is fresh and zesty in yellow, orange and lime. 

Decorative glass jars full of carrots, apples and oranges greet you on your way into CK Café. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

First up, a freshly squeezed health juice. Wine later (their wine menu is simple and delicious, offering a combo of Portuguese and SA wines). Take your pick from a juice menu that includes Cool Down (pineapple and ginger), Flu Fighter (lime, orange, ginger) and Beauty Love (orange and mango) all freshly sourced and juiced. The food menu is similarly fresh – poke bowls, bliss bowls and salads.

The tartare de atum is a roughly chopped raw tuna salad with sesame seeds, garlic, olive oil, lime and fresh herbs. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

The tartare de atum is sublime, a roughly chopped raw tuna salad with sesame seeds and garlic, olive oil, lime, fresh herbs, served with thinly sliced toasted ciabatta. CK Café’s falafel bowl as a main meal is equally delicious, featuring homemade falafel balls, a carrot salad and a green salad; as is the tuna poke bowl, and the chicken salad with rocket, parsley and boiled eggs. This is light, healthy and refreshing food at its finest.

CK Café’s falafel bowl features homemade falafel balls, a carrot salad, a green salad and an avocado salsa. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Location, location. Plus a fabulous Chinese Mozambican menu with lashings of Beira and a great back story. That’s Wings in the new Jardim Centenario, along the Marginal, the city’s main beach road. The restaurant looks right onto the ocean, has eclectic décor – Astroturf carpets, big wooden benches and tables, great lighting – and an upbeat atmosphere. It’s very convivial. You could settle in for the afternoon.

The starter platter at Wings features rissois de camarão, a shrimp turnover filled with a spicy, creamy sauce, as well as samoosas, and ground peanuts. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Start with a platter of typical Mozambican nibbles like rissois de camarão, a shrimp turnover filled with a spicy, creamy sauce, and samoosas, a beloved Mozambican starter that you’ll find everywhere across the city. The ones at Wings are especially delicious, served with a piquant dipping sauce in a cocktail glass.

This sopa wantan is a vivifying noodle dish with steamed dumplings, pork fillet, prawns and ginger consommé. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Celia Wings runs the show here and she’s bonhomie personified. Many of the recipes are from her late mother’s treasured recipe book. Like the sopa wantan, a vivifying noodle dish with steamed dumplings, pork fillet, prawns and ginger consommé. And the sweet and sour chicken with homemade crisps. Their meat menu features fabulous dishes like recheada com chouriço ou sem (stuffed spicy chouriço sausage) carne assada (grilled and sliced beef, marinated then seared to impart a charred flavour) and porco laranja (pork with an orange sauce). 

Celia’s family is third generation Mozambican, from Beira, and her great grandmother came from China. During the war years, Celia’s parents ran a restaurant in Beira called the Macuti Bar which was a favoured haunt of expats.

Goat stew is cooked with love, purple onions, green peppers and mustard seeds. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Hip new kid on the restaurant block is Kwetu Café in Museu, near the landmark Cardoso Hotel. It’s a casual eatery tucked in a driveway next to an apartment, and is owned and run by the charming Rwandan-born Ndori Kambari Sady, who is a great host and a busy waiter. The menu is East African, many of the recipes inspired by his own mother’s cooking, and also features vegan and vegetarian options. 

The Kwetu fresh juices are divine, but many opt for a cold Dosh Em instead, the famous Mozambican 2M beer, or a glass of chilled vino. To go with pilau rice, for instance, served with beef, prawns or chicken and a side of cucumber and avo; as well as akatogo or imvange which is green bananas with potatoes and beef or goat, and amashaza which is peas, onion, pepper and tomato.

The Kwetu goat is seriously delicious, cooked with love, purple onions, green peppers and mustard seeds. They also do a goat curry, a bean curry and a sweet potato curry, all served with freshly made chapati bread. Another winner is the grilled tilapia, which is served with xima (mielie meal) cooked in coconut milk and sukuma wiki, which is braised collard greens (like Swiss chard) East African style. Sukuma wiki is a Swahili phrase meaning ‘to stretch the week’ especially when paired with xima.

Star of the show at Nom is the seared tuna with a sesame seed crust and lightly wokked vegetables with soy sauce. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Nom is a secret garden in the middle of busy Maputo. This small restaurant has hanging plants, a vertical garden, and is shaded by palms and bamboos. A popular haunt with the cocktail set, Nom has an Asian-inspired menu. Think light cuts of seafood, chicken and beef, lots of lemon, lime, garlic, soy sauce, and hoisin sauce, a thick, fragrant sauce typically used in Cantonese cuisine.

It also has some fine Portuguese offerings, like bolhinas alheira. Alheira is usually a horseshoe-shaped smoked sausage with a soft stuffing of poultry, bread, olive oil, garlic and chilli pepper. This is the balls version. Also delicious is the fritto misto in Italian, a fried mix, lightly battered medley of seafood. Nom’s mix has lightly battered small sardines and squid tentacles, with a green chilli sauce on the side.

Star of the main menu is the seared tuna with a sesame seed crust and lightly wokked vegetables with soy sauce. Their Asian menu is a tour of the east – Japanese tonokotsu ramen, a pork broth with noodles, Thai vegetarian arroz (rice), Malaysian curry with coconut milk, choose either prawns, chicken or meat, and Indonesian mee goring, island style fried noodles. They also do a Beef Wellington, of all things, much to the delight of British expats.

An easygoing eatery, Mamma Mia offers platters of traditional Tsonga fare. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Delicious home-style traditional Mozambican cuisine, that’s what you’ll get when you fall into the arms of Mamma Mia, an easy going eatery in the FEIMA market at Parques dos Continuadores. Think light curries, shelled prawns, coconut milk, beans, lentils, nuts and interesting greens. How utterly delicious their platter which offers a taste of of caril de camarão mboa, a prawn and pumpkin leaf curry with coconut milk; caril de feijão nhemba, a lentil and bean curry, mucapàta, a baked dish made from ground beans, rice and potato; and finally matapa, a creamed spinach made from manioc leaves.

Chillies and warm spices are the soul of Maputo cuisine. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Built in 1801, the Mercado Central (central market) has been restored and tidied up and is a visual and sensory feast. Fresh markets here are the heartbeat of so many people’s daily lives and it’s fabulous to see it all in motion. There are women plying prawns and squid, fish and clams. There are people selling spiky jackfruit, white daikons (a type of radish), red chillies; spices in glorious colours. There are purple aubergines, green lettuces, frilly lettuce and cashew nuts.

The bull’s heart fruit at the central market is like a mixture of pineapple and banana with a zest of citrus – delicious on a hot Maputo morning. (Photo: Bridget Hilton-Barber)

Don’t be nervous of trying the coraçao de buey, bull’s heart in English, or soursop, which is a creamy, tangy and refreshing fruit. Think a mixture of pineapple, banana with a zest of citrus. Just lovely for a hot Maputo morning. And atta, a custard apple in English, which is similarly zingy, also monkey orange. And all around town, there are juice pressers with brightly coloured mobile barrows, offering freshly pressed juice made from sugar cane, pineapple, orange, and ginger. And also coconut sellers, who, with a panga and amazing artistry, peel a coconut, put a straw in the middle and pass it to you to drink in the cool deliciousness of clear coconut water. DM/TGIFood

CK Cafe | Call +258 86 462 3055 or visit their Facebook page

Wings | Call +258 85 242 7486 or email [email protected]

Kwetu Cafe | Call +258 84 415 5558 or email [email protected]

Nom | Call +258 84 922 4673 or email [email protected]

Mamma Mia | Call +258 84 410 5524 or email [email protected]

For guided tours of the market, contact Dana Tours on [email protected] or call +258 21 418 144.

Follow Bridget Hilton-Barber on Instagram bridgethiltonbarber