Badolina Secret Garden
A yoga-set vegan cafe behind a Zanzibar beach, where Balinese-calm interiors frame globe-spanning superfood plates, fruit platters and live music.
Tucked behind one of the prettiest beaches on Zanzibar, Badolina Secret Garden is a yogi haven that is rather too good to keep quiet about. The interior sets the tone (clean, earthy, a kind of Balinese calm imported into the middle of East Africa), and the cooking follows suit.
The plates here are superfood-led, drawing on vegan cuisine from around the world rather than any single tradition. The crowd matches: arrive after the morning’s sun salutations and you will find the garden filling with yoga mats, water bottles and the gentle hum of a post-practice appetite.
Breakfast is the easy entry point: fruit platters and avocado toasts, the sort of unfussy nourishment a morning of yoga calls for. Later in the day, the kitchen reaches further. A Greek-inspired salad bowl, the Yalla Yalla tahini falafels and the Yogi platter all do the work of replenishing body and soul, whatever hour you turn up.
The advice, locally, is to time a visit for the live music. It makes for the kind of slow, satisfying end to an active day that the island does particularly well.
For a traveller on Zanzibar who wants a meal that feels light, considered and quietly restorative, with a setting to linger in, Badolina is a genuine find. Come for breakfast, stay through the music.
