Victoria Island Garden Flat

Victoria Island is where Lagos does its business and, increasingly, where it eats. Once a residential district of low-rise houses and wide streets, it now carries most of the city's corporate towers, the better restaurants, and a growing number of galleries. The result is a neighbourhood that runs on a weekday rhythm — busy and formal until seven, then loosening considerably. For a returnee it has one obvious practical virtue: almost everything you will want is within a short drive, and the roads that matter are among the best maintained in the city. Ozumba Mbadiwe and Ahmadu Bello run the length of the island and are lit through the night. Restaurants cluster around Akin Adesola and Adeola Odeku, both a few minutes from the apartment. It is not a quiet neighbourhood in the way Ikoyi is quiet. There is construction, there is traffic, and there is noise on Friday nights. What it offers instead is proximity — to the airport road, to the island's restaurants, and to the lagoon itself.