Luckily, the Ghanaian menu at the Gold Coast Bar and Restaurant was completely worth an epic, rain-drenched Saturday night journey to zone six. Otherwise, I would have been in trouble. The restaurant was my suggestion. I’d found it almost at random—it was the first Google hit for “London Ghanaian restaurant”—and immediately decided we had to go. A self-described Ghanaian gastropub with fried yam balls that get great reviews! Surely that would be worth riding three different trains to some godforsaken south London suburb for?
When we got off the train at Norwood Junction, it seemed like we were in the right neighbourhood for Ghanaian food–we passed Ghanaian flags in cafe, shop and salon windows on our walk to the restaurant. (Ghana, or the Gold Coast as it was called then, was a British colony until 1957, so London actually has a large Ghanaian community, mostly concentrated in Dalston, Lewisham and Brixton.)
And by the time we poured out of the restaurant after a three-hour feast that saw us sample most of the criminally underpriced menu, we were happily stuffed with new and interesting types of meat and stodge. Meats and carbs of all kinds are central to Ghanaian cuisine. Fufu, the most interesting of the carbs, is like a gooier polenta, but made from water and boiled mashed root vegetables like cassava and plaintain. It’s so common in Ghana (and other east and west African countries) that there’s an instant version, but the restaurant manager advising us on our orders worried it would be too adventurous for first timers. It wasn’t, and it was delicious with the soup it accompanied—aponkyi nkakra, tender steamed mutton steeped in a light broth made with ginger, chilli, tomato and onion.
Other interesting starchy staple foods: banku, maize balls that were more like lumps of soft dough; kenkey, fermented maize balls, sour and challenging; waakye, a dark, slightly fermented-tasting mixture of black-eyed beans and wild rice; jollof rice, a less pungent combination of basmati and tomato; kelewele, sweet, ripe, deep-fried plantain bits served with a bowl of roasted peanuts; and yele, deep fried yam. (Alas, they were out of the famous yam balls, described as deep fried, spicy mashed yam mixed with vegetable. We also missed out on omo tuo, rice balls served only on Sundays along with Sunday special soups that are traditional favourites—abenkwan, a palm nut soup, and nkatsenkwan, a peanut soup.)
Ghanaian portions are huge, and all the starch was excellent for mopping up the intimidating mounds of meat placed before us. The nyama choma/ntaba, wood-smoked, chargrilled lamb, came recommended as the manager’s favourite, and was my favourite too. Served with a tomato salsa, it was cubed, dry, salty and smoky, almost a jerky. Turkey tail meat (chofi), also smoked and seasoned with chilli and ginger, was difficult to pry off the oddly-shaped tail bones, but worth it. Domedo, chargrilled cubed pork belly, was crispy and fatty, while oxtail was served in a tomatoey stew. All were spicy, not at first, but in a way that crept up on you until your tongue and eyes watered. An accompanying sauce, shito, made with tomato, onion, dried fish and cayenne pepper, was even more fiery—just a speck was enough to do tongue damage too serious for our Kenyan lager to wash away. (Ghanaian-brewed Guinness, described by a waiter as “Guinness without the headache”, was also on offer.)
We’d started the evening as the only ones in the dining room, a modern space on the first floor adorned with red walls, white linen tablecloths and African-themed art. But soon, the place was crammed with what seemed like the neighbourhood’s entire African community. Back downstairs in the bar, it was just as crowded, with a DJ spinning an inviting hip hop and Ghanaian pop soundtrack. We sat over drinks, wishing we had neighbourhood pubs like this one.
In summary
The Gold Coast Restaurant and Bar
224 Portland Road, South Norwood, London, SE25 4QB
020 8676 1919
More Ghanaian
Karol, hankering after kelewele following our Gold Coast visit, was delighted to discover a Ghanaian food stall in Exmouth Market. (Jollof Pot also has a stall there, as well as at Portobello Market and Broadway Market.) He reports: “The kelewele is not as good as in the Gold Coast, but the beef and pepper curry was very nice indeed. They have a menu that seems to change daily.” Karol has also spotted fufu flour at Tesco! And learned his dad once had a Ghanaian roommate who ate fufu all the time with everything, not just soup.
