Meza Malonga — Restaurant in Kigali City

Amazing!

Food. 11 course degustation. Entrees, mains, and deserts were all fantastic. Local ingredients. Beautifully plated. Fusion taste. We loved the food.

Drinks. We had the wine pairing. The wines were ok. I don't think there was a sommelier. We would have been interested in a non-alcoholic drink pairing with local fruits or local drinks.

Service. A large team. Led by Chef Malongo. Malongo and his team take turns to explain the ingredients and the dish. Some staff should be more confident and encouraged to engage with diners. The team overall are great.

Atmosphere. The location is brilliant. Second floor, on top of a hill, overlooking the city lights. Open air seating with large open windows. Cool breeze. 6 tables for the whole floor. Large restaurant. Feels intimate yet spacious. When you walk-in, you can read about the aspiration of the chef. Casual dress, but fine dining.

Journey. From the moment you arrive, you are greeted with warm welcome. Malongo himself will greet you with most meals. Flavours of local and African cuisine. Through to dessert, everything was World Class Michelin Star Chef Hat quality.

Price. USD$300 for 2 degustations with wine pairing. This is excellent value given the quality of the food and Malongo taking the time for each of his guests. Please give a descent tip, the team deserve something for this special moment.

Where to sit? We sat by the window near the reception. It was great to people watch. Locals in Kigali love to walk around town. It's a hilly city but the roads are wide, with great walk paths everywhere, very green, and night lights along the roads. People watching at its finest.

We highly recommend Meza Malongo if you are in Kigali. Actually, we recommend if you are in Africa that you make a special trip to dine here.

Meza Malongo is one of the best restaurants that we have eaten at around the world. The best restaurant that we have eaten...

You won’t be disappointed with the presentation and execution of each dish as it is given and explained by one of the chefs if you are familiar with fine dining cuisine and have done research on Meza Malonga (MM). The crew creates culinary art in an open-plan kitchen with multiple workstations, a setting that exudes urban flair. However, gourmet dining is more than simply the setting, presentation, and creative cooking; prawns that are specifically selected from Mombasa, a leaf from Nigeria, and a seed from Cameroon are all essential components of the meal.

Additionally, there is the delivery, and there is where MM fell woefully short. Based on my experience, tasting menus consisting of nine to twenty(!) courses usually have a 10-minute interval between each dish (slightly longer where there are less but larger servings), giving a two to three hour gourmet experience. The greatest interval between courses was a staggering thirty minutes, with most being more than twenty minutes apart.

A well-curated tasting menus portion sizes correspond to the number of courses, ensuring that you will be satisfied at the end of the dinner. Albeit not at MM. Even though MM is a nine-course tasting menu, the serving sizes are more like those of a twenty, with only one "main" when I would have thought that two or three would have provided a more balanced and substantial experience. Extremely frugal. I was therefore left disappointed by the excruciating waits and excessively small servings when food did eventually arrive. I am not a big guy with a huge appetite, but I left ravenous.

However, the best was still to come. When I contacted MM the following day to share my experience, all I got back was a "Thank you for your feedback." Arrogant and dismissive. The restaurant won't fail, but the management whom don't care about my substandard, and most definitely not fine dining, evening will hopefully will...

The whole experience at Meza Malonga was fantastic:

We spent an amazing day at the food experience at the new Meza Malonga in Musanze. We were picked up with a boat at the pier and started our day with a boat ride across the stunningly beautiful lake. At the venue we first got a tour and some welcome drinks. The whole project of Mr Malonga is so visionary and you get the feeling you are in a temple for foodies - built to connect talented young people and spread the word about the tastes of various African cuisines.

The 8 course menue was one of the best things I have ever eaten. Placed at a table with a stunning view across the lake, the super hospitable and friendly team served 8 very refined sets of dishes. So most courses consist of 2-4 smaller dishes that are built around a common theme (e.g. beet root). Many of the dishes had a specific spice as main focal point, which is so interesting because it is a very different approach, but lead for me to experience completely new taste profiles, which I've never tried before. The wine pairing consisted mostly of very well selected South African wines that were in line with the African theme. If that wasn't enough already the vegetables are grown on their own local farms, which guarantees high quality of the produce components. In between the courses we had some time to meet the other guests and enjoy the scenery. So, this is probably the most enthusiastic review I have ever written, but the unique combination of atmosphere, hospitality, idealistic vision, focused concept and last but not least delicious food totally deserves it. Great value for money as well.

I hope Mr Malonga will write a cook book or create a spice collection for export in the future, so we can try to recreate some of the delicious tastes at home...