Help Little Baobab find its home

Aim

Little Baobab is London's only Senegalese restaurant - we now need to find a new home and need your help!

Little Baobab, founded and led by Khadim Mane, is a Senegalese restaurant and community project promoting Senegalese food and culture in the UK. Little Baobab has taken many forms over the past 10 years, from pop-ups with live music in East London, to a street food stall in Peckham Levels, and most recently, our 35-seat beautiful restaurant in the Africa Centre in Southwark.

We had an amazing two years at the Africa Centre and had a loyal customer base and growing recognition - including winning the 'African Food Award' at the Be Inclusive Hospitality 2025 Awards and a glowing review from Jay Rayner in the Financial Times 'Little Baobab - a place you want to be'.

Unfortunately in late July this year, the Africa Centre was forced to close its doors due to financial stress. As the resident restaurant in the centre we also had to close with zero notice, which has been very tough on the business and our wider team.

Despite this, we're looking to turn this situation into a positive and use the opportunity to finally find our own permanent home for Little Baobab, and for Senegalese food in the UK.

We have started the search for a site and have some really good options on the table, but any of these options would require significant costs upfront in order to make the space our own. 

What's needed and for what

We have some financing in place already but we are looking to raise £50,000 to complete our budget.

We own a lot of our kitchen equipment and tables and chairs already, but need to undertake some work in order to build our open kitchen, and make the space feel like Little Baobab's home. All money raised will contribute to our:

- Design and build
- Additional furniture items needed
- Final kitchen appliances to complete our set-up
- Pre-opening expenses (legal fees, rent deposit etc)
- PR and marketing expenses

We have a range of rewards to choose from, including pre-paying for a lunch or dinner, joining a cooking class with Chef Khadim, or booking private dining for your next party or event. We also have an open donation option if you just want to support!

Our Food

We cook modern, authentic Senegalese food. As the first Senegalese restaurant in London we love introducing people to Senegalese cuisine, and take pride in championing the fresh and flavourful food of our country. We serve classic Senegalese dishes such as Thiebou Dienne, Yassa and Mafe and play around with the flavours and textures of our traditional food and ingredients to create some exciting snacks, small plates and desserts.

The Impact

As many of you know, Little Baobab is more than just the restaurant and your support will also enable this broader mission of ours. We are a hub for the diaspora connected to Senegal and Africa through food, music and dance, and regularly organise live music and cultural events. 

We also use our restaurant space to run our cooking classes for young people, a new initiative developed by Chef Khadim to provide training and opportunities to young people from diverse backgrounds.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 8th November 2026 at 10:11am