Mozambique Street Food

Mozambican street food is a Portuguese-African hybrid: fiery piri-piri sauce meeting charcoal grills and coastal seafood.

5 street food dishes from Mozambique — what each one is, why it's made that way, and what to expect when you order it.

Signature street foods of Mozambique

🍺 National Lager · Colonial-Era Brand 2M (Dois M) Mozambicans don't ask for 'a beer' — they ask for 'a dois-M,' and the brand is so dominant that ordering anything else at a street bar gets you a… 2M (pronounced 'doish-EM,' short for its brewer Cervejas de Moçambique) is a crisp pale lager that's been brewed in the country since the 1930s and remains the default beer at roadside… Grilled · Peri-Peri Chicken Frango à Zambeziana (Piri-Piri Chicken) The chili sauce that made this dish world-famous isn't even native to Africa — it crossed the Atlantic with Portuguese traders. Chicken is split, marinated in a fiery piri-piri (bird's-eye chili) sauce built with garlic and lemon, and grilled over charcoal at simple grill shacks and roadside barracas. It's usually… Grilled · Coastal Seafood LM Prawns These prawns are named after a city that no longer exists on any map — Lourenço Marques, Maputo's name until 1976. Large prawns are split, brushed with piri-piri butter, and grilled over open coals at beachside grill shacks along the Mozambican coast, then eaten with the hands alongside rice or bread. Snack · Fried Pastry Chamuças (Mozambican Samosas) This 'Indian' snack became Mozambican because Goa and Mozambique were both Portuguese colonies at the same time. Triangular pastries stuffed with spiced meat, fish, or vegetables and deep-fried until crisp, chamuças are sold hot off the pan by street vendors in Maputo and Inhambane. Eaten by hand… Stewed · Cassava Leaf & Peanut Matapa Matapa is traditionally pounded by hand in a wooden mortar for over an hour — the long pounding is what breaks the cassava leaves down into their… Matapa is a deep-green stew of finely pounded cassava leaves simmered in coconut milk with ground peanuts and, along the coast, small dried or fresh shrimp. Street vendors and market cooks…

More street food in Africa

• Morocco
• Nigeria
• Egypt
• South Africa
• Ethiopia
• Kenya
• Ghana
• Senegal
• Tunisia
• Algeria
• Tanzania
• Uganda
• Zimbabwe
• Cameroon
• Ivory Coast
• Mali
• Rwanda
• Zambia
• Sudan
• Libya
• DR Congo
• Somalia
• Madagascar
• Botswana
• Namibia