Kenyan restaurants in the USA: how to find nyama choma near you

Somewhere in your metro area, there is probably a Kenyan kitchen. It may be a full restaurant with goat on the grill and a Kenyan football match on the TV, a counter inside an African grocery, a caterer who cooks for weddings and church events, or an East African restaurant with a few Kenyan dishes on the menu. Finding it takes a little local knowledge, and this page gives you the method.

We do not publish a list of restaurants here, on purpose. Kitchens open, move and close quickly, and a directory that is wrong is worse than none. Instead, here is where the big Kenyan communities are, how to search, what to order, and how to tell a real Kenyan kitchen. Your city's page in our From your city section has the flights and the local community details.

Where the Kenyan communities are

The Migration Policy Institute counted about 150,900 Kenyan immigrants in the U.S. for 2017 to 2021, and the 2021 census estimate was about 94,600 Kenyan-born residents. Add their U.S.-born children and the Kenyan-American community is well above either number. The food follows the people.

How to find a Kenyan restaurant near you

• Search maps for Kenyan restaurant, Kenyan food and nyama choma, then also East African restaurant: many Kenyan dishes are served in Somali, Ethiopian and Tanzanian kitchens
• Look for the dishes, not the flag: a menu with ugali, sukuma wiki, goat, matumbo (tripe) and chapati is a Kenyan menu, whatever the sign says
• Ask at a Kenyan church: in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Minneapolis, Seattle and the DC suburbs, Kenyan congregations are the center of community life, and members know who cooks
• Ask a Kenyan association: city and national associations post events where caterers serve; our page on Kenyan associations in the U.S. lists how to find them
• Check African groceries: many sell Kenyan maize flour, tea and spices, and some have a hot-food counter or know the local caterers
• Follow the calendar: Jamhuri Day in December, Madaraka Day in June and Kenyan community festivals and fundraisers often have the best Kenyan food in the city, cooked by the people who run the restaurants
• Read the reviews for Kenyan voices: if Kenyan customers say it tastes like home, trust them

What to order

First time? Order goat nyama choma with ugali, sukuma wiki and kachumbari for the table, a chapati each and chai to finish. Eat the ugali with your right hand. If you are with a Kenyan friend, let them order.

How to tell a real Kenyan kitchen

• Goat on the menu, not just beef and chicken
• Ugali made fresh and firm enough to hold its shape
• Kachumbari with every grilled meat
• Chai boiled with milk, not a teabag with a jug of cream
• Kiswahili, Sheng or a mother tongue at the next table, and football or Kenyan TV news on the screen
• Weekend specials: many places cook mukimo, matumbo or whole fish only on Fridays and Saturdays

For the restaurant owners

Kenyan-owned restaurants in the U.S. do more than feed people. They are where diaspora families take their children to taste home, where churches hold fundraisers, and often where people first talk about a trip back. If you run one, we would like to hear from you: tell us about your kitchen through our planning form.

When the restaurant is not enough

There is a point where the chapati in Arlington or Kent is no longer enough and someone in the family says it is time to go home. Our diaspora pages cover trips to see family, citizen park rates for Kenyan passport holders and the first trip with children born in the U.S. And if you would rather cook than eat out, our recipes page has the dishes with U.S. measures and store substitutions.

Kiswahili at the table