COVER STORY | Dakar
W FRIDAY
est Africa’s hub for nongovernmental organisations and international agencies, Dakar draws a cosmopolitan mix of travellers to its dusty downtown streets and surf-pounded coastline. It’s a city of hustlers and traders, bargainers and touts, eager to show you something or sell you something and not always dissuaded by a polite “non, merci.” Keep saying it. Daytime streets are crowded with men in sharp suits and women rustling in the hand-dyed polished cottons called bazins. At night, intimate restaurants offer Lebanese and French-influenced dishes or simple but fresh grilled fish with Creole sauce. Much later, the dance clubs in Plateau and Almadies, along with the calls to prayer, resound into the early morning.
2 P.M.
THE NATIONAL LUNCH One doesn’t stroll through Plateau, the old commercial and governmental center of Dakar. The broken sidewalks require careful navigation. Street corners are occupied by women selling citrus fruits and candied peanuts. Vendors carry books, board games, shirts, belts and, always, sunglasses. Friday is a special day of charity for Muslims, and crippled mendicants are much in evidence. Chez Loutcha is a crossroads for everyone who spends time in Plateau. Always busy, but in a down-home way, it serves big plates of West African food. Try Senegal’s national dish, thiebou dienn, seasoned fish served with rice in a tomatoey sauce with cabbage, eggplant and carrots. Expect to spend about 6,000 West African CFA, pronounced SAY-fah ($12.70, at 472 CFA to the dollar), for lunch. For a cultural contrast, walk to La Royaltine, an elegant patisserie, for macarons or a lemon tart, about 3,500 CFA.
Perfect Pit Stop Chez Loutcha serves big plates of West African food
42