When Taiwo Animashaun, who works at Tastee Fried Chicken in Lagos, needed a new hotplate, she decided to try the plush Ikeja City Mall, which opened in December, instead of her local market. Within minutes of entering Shoprite, the South African supermarket that anchors the complex, she had made her purchase.

“It’s a good place to shop,” says Ms Animashaun. “Everything is arranged nicely, and the prices are not bad.”

From Lagos in the west to Nairobi in the east and Lusaka in the south, trendy new shopping malls have sprung up across Africa as the continent’s mushrooming cities modernise and its emergent middle class swells.

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