Solomon's Beach Bar and Restaurant

Solomon's is one of the best beach bars in The Gambia — a proper sand-floor shack where the fish comes straight off the boats. Red snapper, grouper, barracuda and whatever else has landed that morning are grilled simply and served with rice and chips, washed down with a cold local beer in a hammock as the surf rolls in. There's a long, near-empty beach stretching away on either side, which is the whole point: this is barefoot, unhurried, end-of-the-day dining rather than anything formal. Around £10 a head, walk-ins welcome and no reservations needed — just turn up hungry, ideally in time for the sunset. It's the kind of place that sums up the quieter south coast: fresh fish, cold beer, sand between your toes and nowhere you'd rather be. For a long, lazy beach lunch, few spots do it better.