#182: World Cup City - Senegal 🇸🇳

Day 16: In Matongé

Welcome to an ongoing Brussels Notes series exploring the 48 participating countries of the 2026 World Cup, without leaving Brussels. Read the explainer, and then subscribe.

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SENEGAL v France

Thieyp, Rue Longue Vie 46, 1050 Ixelles

Thieyp is on the border of what you might call an interface area, between Matongé as it has been since it became the centre of Brussel’s African diaspora community, and Matongé as it looks to be heading with the inexorable creep of concept restaurants, natural wine bars, and the infiltration of the professional managerial class (white people) from Flagey and the adjacent European quarter.

That was where I was coming from, and on my way from the office I passed an Afro-centric bookshop and gallery, a shipping and freight company focused on African routes, and several small restaurants with the name Malewa or Malou painted on the window. But I also passed Thieyp’s immediate next-door neighbour, an Italian restaurant serving pasta at €25 a plate and glasses of wine for a tenner, and once I’ve taken my seat in Thieyp by the window, I as on the street outside a parade of parents on their longtails - children’s helmet tied up on the back - cycle past on their way to and from the school run.

Thieyp, which describes its concept as “fresh African mama kitchen”, seems to straddle these two worlds simultaneously, a grey zone between Matongé and Not Matongé - the food is Senegalese, and there are swatches of wax fabric in blue, yellow, brown, and orange on the walls; but there are also vegetarian options. There are no laminated menus, and instead a chalk board menu lists what’s available to eat each day of the week. It feels, in a non-perjorative sense, a more aspirational, contemporary take on the restaurants in the nearby streets that have been serving diners with Yassa Poulet and Mafé. Places like the Ô Sénégal restaurant around the corner on the Waversesteenweg, which I had considered for lunch but eschewed for the very reasons stated above: the Thieyp felt more accessible for someone who is ignorant of Senegalese food, and someone who is a cautious eater by nature and is trying very hard to not eat meat.

There’s four of us in the restaurant, a young man at a nearby table who’s plate is almost empty, the woman who looks to be running the place, and the chef in porkpie hat who she had to fetch in off the street to make my lunch. The room is bright and airy, the air conditioning set to full power to combat the heat outside, its low hum competing with rhythmic music on a speaker hidden somewhere up high.

I am, as in most things, ignorant to a large extent of Senegalese cuisine, in fact if cooking from all of West Africa. So when the woman comes over to my table and asks if I know what they do, I listen as she runs down through today’s dishes: it’s Thursday means Foutou banane sauce graine, with lamb. Or thiou boulettes de poisson, served with either rice or sweet potato fries. Friday it’s thieboudienne and Saturday dibi and allocos. Mafé on Tuesday. I plump for the vegetarian option, a salad of various strips of vegetables served on a bed of Attiéké - fermented cassava paste that was similar in texture to couscous - and topped with fried plantains.

I am offered a trio of little tasting bowls of fresh juice to help me make up my mind about what I want to drink (they do not serve alcohol, but diners can bring their own). The ginger was fiery, and the hibiscus sweet, so I choose the middle ground of a glass of the cloudy, floral baobab. But the star of the show were the three bowls of sauce I am served alongside my salad. I work through them anti-clockwise - the first beige, the second green (I missed their names) until I arrived at the bowl of piment (an innocuous shade of terracotta) confidence in my culinary adventurism increasing with each one. Reader, I was still feeling the effects of a thimbleful of this sauce on my lips an hour later, when I was texting L a picture of my half-eaten lunch with the caption “Senegalese food - it’s good!”

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Tomorrow, we’re off to Iberia...

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Thanks for reading - I’m writer Eoghan Walsh and this is my weekly free-to-subscribe newsletter about life in Brussels. If you like it and you’re not already subscribed, you can sign up here!