Matongé is Brussels's African quarter, a few dense, vivid streets behind the Porte de Namur and named after a lively district of Kinshasa. Congolese families settled here from the 1960s, and it is now the cultural heart of the city's Central African community — wax-print fabric shops, hair salons, record stores, grocers stacked with plantain and cassava, and the smell of grilled fish and moambe drifting out of the restaurants.
The covered Galerie de la Porte de Namur and the Chaussée de Wavre are the spine of it, busiest on Saturdays and during the summer Matongé street festival. Come to eat — Congolese, Senegalese, and Rwandan kitchens sit within a block of each other — and to browse the fabric and music shops. It is one of the most distinctive corners of Brussels, a short walk from both the Sablon and Ixelles proper.