When in Watamu, check out this fresh seafood restaurant

Papa Remo Beach Restaurant, Jacaranda Road, Watamu

I have such fond memories of this place. It was 2014 and I was visiting Watamu for the first time. One of the restaurants we visited then was Papa Remo, and I vividly remember the dish I ordered: octopus with chips and a garden salad. I remember it because it was the first time in my life that I tasted octopus, a thing that until then I would have told you I would never put in my mouth, and every last mouthful of that dish was delicious. 

This beach restaurant has certainly changed since then, but do you know that saying: the more things change, the more they remain the same? In a lot of ways, it was exactly as I remembered it. The beach here is fantastic. This is the type of spot to come to if you’re looking to also spend your afternoon lounging on a daybed by a powder-white beach overlooking a love island which you can actually walk to if the tides allow. 

The restaurant is owned by an Italian family who is very hands-on in its management, and you are likely to see them pottering about the place. It is said to be the oldest restaurant in Watamu, and while they introduce new dishes on the menu to accommodate a wider customer base and to adapt to the times, you can also trust that you will always find the seasoned-favourites constant. The selection on the menu is so wide that they have 73 food items, 45 types of drinks, and 17 types of pizza. 

I wanted fresh seafood or something Italian, and I, therefore, went with the seafood pizza, and then because I naively thought that the portion might be small, I got a side of fries with that. My friend went with calamari and chips. For drinks, I was on sparkling water duty as the designated driver. 

The food here is absolutely divine, and I still can’t decide if I enjoyed that or the view more. The portions were also so big that my friend had to get a couple of slices so we could finish it, and we still had leftovers to takeaway. Afterward, having eaten ourselves into a stupor, we all crawled into the beach beds for an afternoon siesta. Papa Remo regularly brings in DJs from Nairobi and the entire time we were there, they had popular Kenyan, Tanzanian and Nigerian hits. If for nothing else, you can stop by for the vibe.