Nouakchott - Post Report Question and Answers
What typical restaurants, food delivery services, and/or takeout options are popular among expatriates?
Other posters are right in that there are fairly limited options. There might be five or six places the community cycles through that have a safe reputation. The beach has a solid seafood restaurant. Fast food drive thru here is terrible and consists of bad hamburgers and pizza. There is decent Indian food, a fantastic Lebanese restaurant (probably the only food place I will miss), and a couple of good French options. Our family has had more home-cooked meals since arriving to Mauritania than at any other point in our life, and we are grateful for it as we have gotten quite good at making a variety of things we never would have attempted otherwise. - Jan 2023
Restaurants are more limited here than anywhere I have lived. The seafood is good: you can get decent sauteed fish, calamari, at the beach. Most restaurants have similar menus that include mediocre pizza, hamburgers, shawarma, chicken wings, "tacos" (which are not tacos, no one is clear on what they are). There are two pretty good French restaurants, one mediocre Chinese restaurant, an okay Indian spot, and a few others. Lots of bakeries with decent croissants, and a good ice cream/gelato place. New restaurants pop up all the time with a lot of buzz, but fall short in providing really good or different food. One sushi restaurant did just open that is quite good, so options should continue to improve. - Aug 2021
Food delivery is risky as well as restaurants as I mentioned above. - Aug 2021
There is a steak house, a French restaurant, lots of seafood places, a Moroccan restaurant and lots of Lebanese places to eat some great food. There are a couple of greasy spoons out there too for burgers and sandwiches, including milkshakes. - Sep 2020
There's a couple good sandwich/shwarma places we go to a lot. There is a new-ish Indian place that does home delivery. Take out is available just about anywhere, but the fancier places will look at you sideways if you ask for take-out instead of eating there. Yes, it is possible to get a decent steak here. Seafood is usually excellent. Pizza is OK. There's a couple Chinese restaurants in town but Mandarin is very helpful for ordering. - Apr 2019
No fast food, and very little in the way of decent restaurants in town. I think you could make a strong case that the Embassy cafeteria is the best restaurant in Nouakchott. That's not an exaggeration. Almost everything I eat is either from the Embassy cafe or my home. - May 2016
American fast food? No There are some decent restaurants. The cost is fine. You will tend to cook at home. - Dec 2015
There are a few non chain "fast food" restaurant but you eat at your own risk. - Apr 2014
Fast food, not so much. Only one fast food restaurant is consistently open and has high quality service. The others are more unpredictable. Twelve inch, eight slice pizzas are about US$5, chawarama US$2. Middle of the road restaurants are good and offer a good variety of options including sea food, Lebanese, and French fare. Expect to spend about $15-20 US per person for dinner. There is at least one fancy restaurant in town that serves high quality French fare. More than US$30 per person for dinner. - Aug 2011
No fast food is available. Some restaurants are okay. You can get by. - Dec 2009
