These African Safari Lodges offer upscale cuisine focused on local ingredients

Safari lodges swap the usual continental menus for fresh recipes showcasing indigenous ingredients.

Sitting at the jet-black counter, watching two chefs work in unison, I felt like I’d hit the Resy jackpot at a restaurant with a Noma-inspired tasting menu. But the view of the rolling red ground outside gave the game away: the Klein Jan Dining Room is actually located in South Africa’s Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, a wilderness populated by lions, rhinos, cheetahs and buffaloes.

The food, however, is not your typical safari lodge: inspired by contemporary culinary trends, the team uses local ingredients in inventive dishes such as savory biltong-flavored lamington cakes and a salad of squash, chili and spekboom, a native succulent. .

As African safari lodges aim to differentiate themselves – and impress their food-obsessed guests – they are doubling down on high-end cuisine. “This region is home to some of the rarest and most beautiful ingredients, and that helps set our menu apart,” says Klein Jan founder Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen, who grew up in South Africa.

In Kenya, chef Evans Ondara has seen tastes evolve considerably during his 23-year career. “What I cook now is totally different,” says Ondara, who works at Angama Mara.. It used to be that buffets and Western comfort food were the norm. Today, diners are craving salads and other vegetable-based dishes. Ondara notes that many rave about the quality of the locally grown produce, including pineapples, mangoes and avocados, as well as the vegetables and herbs grown in the property’s shamba, or garden.

“We always had in mind to celebrate Kenyan cuisine,” says Ondara, noting that a growing number of visitors are requesting the Kenyan Angama Platter, which was introduced in 2022 and includes chapati; Mbuzi Choma, or grilled goat’s cheese; And mukimo, a puree of beans, potatoes and pumpkin leaves.

In Rwanda, chef Vanie Padayachee also gives pride of place to vegetables, whether green beans, rainbow carrots or dodo, as native spinach is called. All are grown on site at Kwitonda Lodge in Singita., on the edge of the Volcanoes National Park. Padayachee draws on this generosity to create simple but flavorful stir-fries served with a skewer, a quintessential Rwandan dish of marinated lamb grilled over an open flame. Other regional flavors — sugar cane juice, jams made from endemic tree tomatoes — are increasingly part of the lodge’s culinary repertoire.

At Muzimu Lodge, in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, chef Arnaldo Mariquele has incorporated local ingredients into more familiar international dishes. “Matapa is a very traditional dish made with cassava leaves, ground peanuts and coconut shavings, often served with shrimp,” says Mariquele. “We use it as a sauce for our pan-seared steaks.”

In Namibia, chef Maria Mumbala also raised polenta, or mieliepap, as it is called in this part of Africa. Working at Zannier Hotels Omaanda, Mumbala serves the classic side dish with either coconut crab curry or grilled game meat (a combo known as ‘pap en vleis). Most of these meats, including Mumbala’s signature oryx fillet with a black pepper crust, come from a ranch just down the road.

For all this interest in local recipes, the next frontier for safari lodges may be an emphasis on “healthy eating”. At all three Chem Chem Safari properties in Tanzania, menus highlight superfoods such as baobab seeds, ginger, raw honey and wild sage. “These ingredients have been used as both food and medicine by our community in the past,” says chef Jimmy Ngira, who is Maasai. “We want customers to relax, slow down, shed their burdens and cherish their time.”

A version of this story first appeared in the September 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the title “From the bottom up”.

For more Travel and Leisure news, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

Read the original article on travel and leisure.