Sunu Makane (Chez Seck)

Sunu Makane, also known as Chez Seck, is a small seafood restaurant on Ngor Island, recommended by Saveur magazine in its 2024 guide to eating in Dakar. It is an easy, unhurried island lunch spot near the first beach you reach after the boat crossing.

The team chooses fish each day, and the dish to order is yassa: fish served with rice and a sauce of slowly cooked onions sharpened with lemon and mustard, one of the great dishes of Senegalese cooking. Saveur reports that on quiet days guests are sometimes invited to help prepare their own fish, which is a rare chance to see how home cooking is done. Grilled fish with rice and salad is the other reliable choice. Yassa is best known in its chicken version, poulet yassa, so the fish version made with a fresh catch is worth seeking out here.

Getting there is part of the experience. Pirogues leave from the beach at Ngor village on the mainland and take only a few minutes to cross; Saveur describes the restaurant as about ten minutes by boat from the city. Combine lunch with a swim, a walk round the island's beaches or a morning surf, and plan to spend a few hours. The island has beaches on all sides, and in summer swimming across from the mainland is a popular local challenge for strong swimmers.

It is a casual, inexpensive option, but there may not be a printed menu, so ask the price of the fish and the dish before ordering. Lunch is the best time to come, and it is worth phoning ahead at weekends, when Ngor Island is busy with Dakar families. Bring cash, as card payments are unlikely to be accepted on the island. It suits couples, families and solo travellers who prefer simple local food to formal dining.

On the way back, the mainland restaurants of Ngor, such as Le N'Gor and La Cabane du Pêcheur, and the bars of Les Almadies are close by. If you want to stay longer, there is a surf camp on the island, and Take Off Ngor and other surf schools give lessons in Ngor Bay.