These African Safari Lodges Offer High-end Cuisine With a Focus on Local Ingredients

Sitting at the jet-black counter, watching two chefs work in unison, I felt as though I’d hit the Resy jackpot at some Noma-inspired tasting-menu restaurant. But the view of the rolling red soil outside gave the game away: The Klein Jan dining room is actually situated on South Africa’s Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, a wilderness populated by lions and rhinos, cheetahs and buffalo.

The food, however, is not your typical safari-lodge fare: Inspired by contemporary dining trends, the team uses local ingredients in inventive dishes such as savory lamington cakes flavored with biltong and a salad of squash, chile, 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 area is home to some of the most rare and beautiful ingredients, and doing this 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 change considerably over his 23-year career. “What I’m cooking now is totally different,” says Ondara, who works at Angama Mara. In the old days, buffets and Western comfort foods were de rigueur. Today, guests are craving salads and other vegetable-forward dishes. Ondara notes that many rave about the quality of locally grown produce, including pineapples, mangoes, and avocados — as well as vegetables and herbs grown in the on-property shamba, or garden.

“We always had it in our minds to celebrate Kenyan cuisine,” Ondara says, noting that a growing number of visitors are requesting Angama’s Kenyan platter, which was introduced in 2022 and includes chapati; mbuzi choma, or grilled goat; and mukimo, a mash of beans, potato, and pumpkin leaves. 

In Rwanda, chef Vanie Padayachee is also giving vegetables pride of place, whether it’s green beans, rainbow carrots, or dodo, as the native spinach is known. All are grown on site at Singita’s Kwitonda Lodge, on the edge of Volcanoes National Park. Padayachee draws on this bounty to create simple yet flavorful stir-fries served alongside brochette, a quintessential Rwandan dish of marinated lamb grilled over an open flame. Other regional flavors — sugarcane juice, jams made from the endemic tree tomato — are increasingly part of the lodge’s culinary repertoire.

At Muzimu Lodge, in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, chef Arnaldo Mariquele has been incorporating native ingredients in more familiar international fare. “Matapa is a very traditional dish made from cassava leaves, ground peanuts, and shaved coconut, that’s often served with prawns,” Mariquele says. “We’re using it as a sauce for our seared steaks.” 

In Namibia, chef Maria Mumbala has also elevated polenta, or mieliepap, as it’s known in this part of Africa. Working at Zannier Hotels Omaanda, Mumbala serves the classic side either with a coconut crab curry or with barbecued game meat (a combo known as ’pap en vleis). Most of those meats, including Mumbala’s signature oryx filet with a black-pepper crust, are sourced from a ranch just down the road.

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

A version of this story first appeared in the September 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “From the Ground Up.”