Eating in Nanyuki

Nanyuki offers a rich variety of restaurants and fastfood shops, from the more luxurius, often western food to small, local kiosks with cheap traditional food.

Kungu Maito/Meat House

Kungu Maito, called Meat House by locals, is a somewhat large, but very local restaurant serving traditional Kenyan cuisine. The restaurant is placed outdoors, in a sort of yard behind a stone wall.

When you enter Meat Marked, one of the first things you notice is the large, open kitchen, fenced by black metal bars, where you can watch the many employees going about their daily work, preparing samosas, ugali and many other kinds of traditional food. The kitchen is noisy and filled with smoke from the many stoves and outside the kitchen, beside the tables, a group of hens cackle around in a small cage. Occasionally a rooster crows loudly across the yard.

If someone orders nyama choma(grilled meat, a favourite dish among many Kenyans), you might see an employee walking by with a freshly slaugthered goat held by the hooves in his hand.

The price range is low, with samosas costing around 50 shilling, chapati costing 30 and the price for a full meal with meat an ugali might be around 200-300 shilling.

Meat House, by the kitchen and the counter

The dining area at Meat House

Dish with ugali, chicken and sauce at Meat House

Checkers grill

This restaurant is also very local and additionally, turns into a bar at night. It's a halfway indoor, halfway outdoor restaurant located in a small, yellow house along one of the many small streets of Nanyuki. At the counter, a selection of fastfood like chapatis, samosas and other deepfried snacks lies in a display. Other traditional dishes like ugali, skumawiki and nyama choma is also available.

Prices are similar to Meat House, with a samosa costing 50 shilling.

Checker's seen from the outside

Springfield

Another good place to get a cheap, traditional meal. Four pointy, red roofs makes an easily recognisable house front, and inside the place is large with brown walls, grey tile floor and brown tables and chairs. Behind the counter, you catch a view of the smoky kitchen with large pots cooking on the stove, probably filled with ugali(traditional kenyan porridge made from maise flour), and many white-clad workers moving around in the smoke.

In you corner of the restaurant, you also find a butchers shop with fresh meat.

Aside from the typical traditional food, you can also get what is definitely Nanyuki's largest beef samosa for only 50 shilling. The price range is mostly the same as at Meat house and Checkers.

Springfield seen from the outside

Inside Springfield

Giant samosas at Springfield! Hand included for size comparison

Chapati at Springfield

Curry Pot

If you need a break from the traditional Kenyan food, Curry Pot offers a wide selection of very tasty Indian dishes. The restaurant is owned by a Kenyan Indian family and is a very small, but cosy place, located a few streets behind the large Nakumatt at the main street.

The place lies opposite a local bar named Home Pub and is not very noticeable from the outside. Inside, there is a few eating tables, a large tv on the wall often displaying news or dramatic Bollywood movies, and a small counter, where it is also possible to buy quick take-away snacks such as samosas, chips and spicy pieces of beef kebab.

The dishes are somewhat more expensive than at the traditional places. A warm dish with rice and naan bread usually costs between 700 and 1200 shilling. If you don't feel like eating out, Curry Pot also provides free delivery around town.

Curry Pot seen from the outside

Smokey stands

A smokey is the Kenyan version of a hotdog. As you stroll around town, you'll probably see this small wagons standing at street corners, outside Nakumatt or a the large food market by Mitumba.

The smokey is a smoked beef sausage that is cut open and filled with katchumbari, a spicy kenyan salad consisting of tomato, onion and chili for 30 shilling.

Aside from the smokeys, you can also buy a hard-boiled egg that is likewise filled with katchumbari for around 20-30 shilling.

While the street food at the smokey wagons might not always look so appetizing with the greasy sausages and eggs, that has been boiled until the yolk has a greyish hue, this is actually both a cheap and tasty snack to eat, and it's available almost everywhere around Kenya.

A typical smokey wagon

Boiled egg filled with katchumbari

Carolina's at Court Yard

There are many places to eat western food in Nanyuki, but since our guide mainly focuses on small, local places, we have decided not to include so many.

However, if you find yourself in need of western food, Carolina's at Court Yard, a restaurant owned by a local Kenyan woman, but definitely not very traditional, is a nice place to go. It's a small place inside Court Yard in Nanyuki, with the restaurant consisting of a group of dining tables placed under the shade. The menu contains many different dishes that are mostly western og western-inspired. The price range, as expected for a more western place, is somewhat higher than the previous mentioned restaurants, but still affordable.

Court Yard with Carolina's at the left