Here is something Akara’s own menu tells you that almost nothing else in London will. The akara is a black-eyed bean fritter from West Africa. It crossed the Atlantic with the people who made it, and in Brazil the same thing is eaten as acarajé. The whole restaurant is built on that one object.
It opened at the end of 2023 in a Borough Yards railway arch, from Aji Akokomi, who also runs Akoko in Fitzrovia, and in the 2026 Michelin guide it picked up a Bib Gourmand, the only new one in this part of London. Forty covers, brick and exposed ducting overhead, a long counter down one side and tables opposite.
What to order
The fritters, and more than one kind. The BBQ prawn is around £10, the crab kulikuli around £11 and the BBQ celeriac, which is vegan, around £7 and not the consolation prize that description suggests. Before them, the rice pancake with black-eyed bean hummus is about £5 and the fried chicken bites with sosu kaani about £7.
Drink a Chapman rather than a cocktail. It is the Nigerian soft drink, it is about £6, and it is the right thing to have with fried food. The cacao negroni at £12 is the other way to go if you want one.
Then get a pot of rice to share. It arrives in cast iron with a long charred aubergine laid across the top and a wooden spoon stuck in it, and it is what turns a round of snacks into an actual dinner. Skip it and you will leave hungry and confused about why.
Where it sits in London
Aji Akokomi’s other restaurant, Akoko in Fitzrovia, is the one that proved West African cooking could hold a Michelin star in this city. Akara is the looser, cheaper, more fun version of that argument, and the Bib Gourmand is the guide agreeing. There is now a serious West African restaurant scene in London and almost none of it is south of the river, which is the other reason this arch matters.
If you have never eaten West African food in a restaurant, this is a good place to start, precisely because it is built around one thing and explains itself. The menu opens by telling you what an akara is. Very few restaurants of this standard bother.
The two catches
It is not cheap. A round of fritters, the rice and a couple of drinks adds up faster than the individual prices suggest, and you can spend more here than at several better-known places two streets away for less food. And it is hard to get into: forty covers, a Bib Gourmand and a Borough Yards address is a difficult combination, so book well ahead rather than chancing it.
The London x London Take: this is some of the most interesting cooking in Borough and there is genuinely very little like it within a mile, which on its own is worth the four minutes under the arches. It loses a star for the money and for how hard it is to get a table, not for anything on the plate. Book two weeks out, ask for the counter, order three kinds of fritter and a pot of rice between two, and drink the Chapman.
Rating: 4/5
Need to know
- Address: Arch 208, 18 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AD, in Borough Yards
- Nearest station: London Bridge, four minutes
- Booking: essential. Forty covers and a Bib Gourmand
- Price: fritters around £7 to £11, snacks £5 to £7, Chapman around £6
- Worth knowing: the counter runs along the open kitchen and is the seat to ask for
More of the area in our guides to Borough Market restaurants and things to do in Southwark, and the market itself in our Borough Market guide.
“Some of the most interesting cooking in Borough, held back only by the prices and how hard it is to get a table.”
