Ivorian food is built around starchy bases — attiéké (fermented cassava couscous), rice, plantain, and yam — combined with rich stews and grilled meat or fish. It is some of the best eating in West Africa.
Attiéké is the national staple, a slightly sour, fluffy cassava dish that accompanies almost everything. The combination of attiéké with poisson braisé (whole fish grilled over charcoal, topped with sautéed onions and tomatoes) is the quintessential Ivorian meal. You will find it at roadside stalls for a few hundred CFA francs.
Alloco — ripe plantain fried in palm oil and served with a chili-onion sauce — is the quintessential street snack. Often eaten with a hard-boiled egg.
Kedjenou is a slow-cooked chicken and vegetable stew prepared in a sealed clay pot (a canari) with almost no added water, letting the ingredients stew in their own juices. It is earthy, spiced with ginger and peppers, and absolutely worth seeking out. Traditionally made for ceremonies; now found in many restaurants.
Mafé (or sauce d'arachide) is a peanut stew with beef, chicken, or fish that shows the Mande influence from the north. It's hearty and warming.
The maquis is the defining Ivorian dining institution: an open-air restaurant, often under a tin roof or beneath trees, serving grilled meat and fish with attiéké and cold Bock (Flag or Solibra beer). Maquis range from plastic-chair shacks to comfortable terrace restaurants. The food is almost always the same and almost always good. In Abidjan, neighbourhoods like Les Deux Plateaux and Cocody are packed with them.
Drinks: Bangui (palm wine) is the traditional local drink — fresh in the morning, increasingly fermented as the day goes on. Gnamakoudji is a spiced ginger drink made with pineapple juice and lemon. Both are sold at market stalls. For beer, the local Solibra and Flag brands are perfectly drinkable and cheap.