ThE INsIDEr’s GuIDE TO Accra for visitors and the best of Ghana 2014/15 ThE pErfEcT brEAk 2014/15 NEW App AND digital IssuE AvAIlAblE www.timeout.com/accra 6th EDITION Accra for visitors And the best of Ghana Gh¢20 | £5.99 Be happy! Superheroes Reviews 51 reasons to Ghana’s comic Essential guide to love Ghana book stars restaurants & bars Contents Published by The Sloane Company Scene from BikeLordz; see p9 Directors Marcel Kouassigan, Michel Kouassigan PO Box AN 10060 Accra-North, Ghana Tel: + 233 244 090 351/2 Fax: +233 302 970155 www.timeout.com/accra [email protected] Published under the authority of and in collaboration with Time Out Group Ltd London UK. The name and logo of Time Out Group Ltd, 4th Floor, 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8AD. UK +44 (0) 20 7813 3000 www.timeout.com Editorial Editor Daniel Neilson Deputy editor Ben Lerwill Contributors Ruth-Ellen Davis, Cat Scully and all the contributors to previous editions Design Art Director johnoakeydesign.co.uk Marketing Director Michel Kouassigan Administration and distribution The Sloane Company Time Out Group Chairman & Founder Tony Elliott Chief Executive Officer Tim Arthur International Managing Director David Woodley Group IT Director Simon Chappell Group Marketing Director Carolyn Sims Global Art Director Anthony Huggins Global Editor Ellen Hardy Contributors & photography ACCRA FOR Daniel Neilson, except: BikeLordz VISITORS film still 5, 9; Benedict Johnson 8, An African City 8; Amfo Connolly 10; 2014/15 Shutterstock/Felix Lipov 25; Ben Features Out and about Lerwill 64; establishments own 23, 31, 38, 45, 49, 54, 60, 73, 78, Shutterstock/Sura Nualpradid cover. Accra in Focus Explore Trips out of Town 07 What’s new in town 26 Sightseeing 78 Trips out of Town Printers Wyndeham Grange, (01273 592 244) Dates for your Diary Consume Directory Key events for 2014/15 86 Getting Around While every effort and care has 10 34 Bars, Pubs & Clubs been made to ensure the accuracy 39 Restaurants & Cafés 86 Resources of the information contained in this Smile: You’re in Ghana! 49 Shopping 88 Emergencies publication, the publisher cannot 12 51 reasons to be happy accept responsibility for any errors you’re in Ghana it may contain. All rights reserved. Arts & No part of this publication may be Nothing Plain About Jane Entertainment reproduced, stored in a retrieval 60 Art & Film system, or transmitted in any 20 Meet Efya, Ghana’s latest form or by any means, electronic, star, plus the best Accra singer 64 Children mechanical, photocopying, 66 Music recording or otherwise, without prior The Mystery of Accra’s 68 Sport permission of Time Out. Secret Crime Fighter © Copyright Time Out Group Ltd 2014 22 The amazing story of Hotels ISBN 9781905042913 Ghana’s best selling novelist 72 Hotels Time Out Accra for visitors and the best of Ghana 2014/2015 5 Accra in Focus Wellbeing in Accra A new yoga studio is just one of a host of wellbeing therapy centres being offered in Ghana oga, we know, is not all about the mind. Nor is it all Yabout physical exercise. It’s about something much more fundamental and encompassing: wellbeing. Many may be be put off by the idea of the downward dog or sun salutations until they try it. And once it’s been tried, most carry on for a lifetime. Now there’s a new opportunity in Accra to get some world-class yoga teaching. In an airy and light room overlooking the Mövenpick’s beautiful gardens, Nana at Bliss Yoga Accra leads the most soothing and life-affirming hour in Accra. All levels feel welcome (even us!), in fact, it’s impossible not to feel anything but the warmest welcomes from the New York-trained Nana. African Superheroes Nana also runs the yoga classes at Kaya (see p56) that From a small studio in Accra new comic book stars have emerged, the also offers a full detox programme at their luxurious colonial house African Legends. And they’re at the forefront of Africa’s digital revolution and a personalised fresh juice detox programme ‘created to “Long ago, Ananse, the god of 2009 by three friends brought depicting him as a god-turned- clear and ease the mind’. You Wisdom, is banished onto Earth together by their passion for superhero in modern Africa. It’s can also find yoga teaching at by Odumankoma, Ruler of the innovation, creativity and change. set both in the ancient Sky Accra Shala Yoga (www. Skies, for treason. Fast-forward We identified opportunities in Kingdom and modern Ghana, accrashalayoga.com). To delve a to today, fate brings Ananse and entertainment-related content, where Ananse possesses a bit deeper, RIMA Thera Touch an innocent boy, Selasi Rockson, especially African-themed content, high-school boy, Selasi, and (www.rimatheratouch.com) offers together. ” and went from there.” bestows god-like reflexology, physiotherapy, taichi powers on him.” and dozens of other therapies. hus starts a remarkable Can you explain Bliss Yoga Accra (0509546723, story, not just for the the genesis of What are you www.blissyogaaccra.com). legendary character of Africa’s Legends? trying to say with TAnanse on the digital page, “Africa’s Legends is Ananse is Africa’s Legends? but for Ghana’s most exciting our flagship superhero “It’s simply our way of digital arts companies. Leti Arts series. It is influenced the god- saying African culture was started in 2009 by three by folklore and myths is cool! The continent friends in Accra as a video game from across Africa. turned- has a diverse and rich development studio. It has since We’re reimagining the superhero culture, which until created a range of remarkable characters from now has been digital comics and interactive African folklore as in modern presented in very mobile apps, as well as the elite superheroes uninteresting formats. continent’s first superheroes: fighting crime in Africa Africa’s Legends is a Africa’s Legends. present-day Africa. catalyst – these Time Out Accra chatted with superheroes can power the next Leti Arts’ Kobby Owusu to Did The True Ananse come out phase of African entertainment. understand the origins of Africa’s of that? We want to show that world-class Legends and the full story. “The True Ananse is the first entertainment can be made for individual series in which we’re the world from Africa.” How did Leti Arts start? reimagining the story of Kweku Bliss Yoga Accra “Leti Games was founded in Ananse, the trickster, and Visit www.letiarts.com for details. Time Out Accra for visitors and the best of Ghana 2014/2015 7 Ghanaian tapestries Sex in the (African) City Wheel to reel Aeroplane food El Anatsui appointment to the Royal Academy A new YouTube series following six returnees back A group of talented Ghanaian BMX riders are about to be launched onto the There’s a restaurant marks a seachange in Ghanaian art to Accra has become the TV event of the year international stage, thanks to a forthcoming crowd-funded film coming in on the DC-10 tonight nabashedly recognised as the world. And the show is Ghana’s ode to Sex and opening people’s eyes as we deal he derelict Ghana Airways Uthe City, An African City has with problems that everyone plane, in a field just beyond accrued its own avid fan base faces: corruption, power Tthe end of the runway of with an average of 100,000 shortages, real estate, AIDS. It’s Kotoka Airport, has always been Youtube hits per episode since its also about sex and about a bit of a poignant sight. It partly launch earlier this year. Set in independent women. An African symbolised the demise of the Accra, the series follows the City is realistic – it shows the national carrier (although it was social lives of five women in their realities of these women living there long before Ghana Airways late 20s who have, for various in Accra.” folded), and partly a reminder of reasons, returned to Ghana after Fashion plays a big part too, the fragility of the economy. Not having been educated and raised with wardrobe cameos from the any more. The poor old DC-10 abroad. MaameYaa Boafo plays likes of Christie Brown and now has a sparkling new green the Carrie Bradshaw character, Afrodesiac. Ghanaian prints, dress and is a statement of Nana Yaa, an attractive and self stylish hair and expensive bags Ghana’s ambitious assured woman, whose true love make for a luxe viewing and drool entrepreneurialism, standing is close by but worthy escapism, an boldly opposite the equally unavailable. She aspect for which the confidant Marina Mall. It has now struggles to show is both praised been converted into the La Tante acclimatise in her and critiqued. DC-10 Restaurant (see p48). new surroundings, Designer dresses Climb the stairs, sit down in one being the last of the It’s the and chauffeured of the reclaimed seats, and order group to arrive reality of driven cars which a meal of Ghanaian classics. ‘home’. Complaints feature in the BikeLordz Stewards bring the food along in OHNSON about poor customer women characters’ lives are the surprisingly spacious interior. J service, her lack of not perhaps a It’s a gimmick for sure, but it’s ‘Africaness’ and living in realistic snapshot for think everyone who gets remarkable. They train in extreme was an appetite for a longer film. still great to see a gleaming plane ENEDICT B plenty of sexual Accra most Ghanaians, off the plane at Kotoka for heat, on dirt roads and with Tobias and Sam used the short to full of people there, than a mass escapades provide however the show “I the first time has a cobbled-together equipment, for promote a crowd-funded of steel.