Once upon a time, safari cuisine was about as adventurous as overcooked chicken and a jug of lukewarm
gravy. The menus leaned heavily toward the colonial — all continental breakfasts and beef Wellington
under the thatch roof of a luxury lodge in the middle of nowhere. The food felt imported, transplanted, and
slightly out of place, as though it had arrived on the same dated plane as khaki shorts and pith helmets.
But that era, thankfully, is being buried under a mound of sweet-potato mash and wild herbs. Across
Africa’s reserve chefs are rewriting the rules of bush dining. The latest trend? A return to the roots —
literally. Lodges are swapping foreign flour and hothouse tomatoes for indigenous grains, heritage recipes,
and produce plucked fresh from the red soil that surrounds them.
Welcome to the age of the culinary safari, where you track flavour and wildlife, where the scent of roasting
millet can be as thrilling as the spoor of a lion, and where each dish offers a sense of place as arresting as
any sunset over the savannah.
A New Kind of Safari
Forget the bland buffets of the past. Today’s most forward-thinking lodges serve up menus that taste like
Africa itself — earthy, aromatic, vibrant, and deeply local. Guests now join chefs on foraging walks through
mopane thickets, learning how to spot edible leaves once used by bush healers and how to grind baobab
seeds into a citrusy powder that brightens everything it touches. Dinners unfold beneath galaxies of stars,
with tables lit by lanterns and the night soundtrack provided by a far-off lion’s roar.
And somewhere between a glass of chilled Chenin and a spoonful of rooibos ice cream, it becomes clear
that this — not the colonial mimicry of old — is the true flavour of the continent. A cuisine born from the
soil it stands on, shaped by communities who know the land best, and presented with a care that feels both
luxurious and grounded.
Sashwa River of Stars: The Lodge That Went Green Before It Was Trendy
At the forefront of this movement stands Sashwa River of Stars, a lodge wedged into the Greater Kruger
region of South Africa, where the word “plant-based” doesn’t signal deprivation — it promises decadence.
Sashwa is not merely a lodge; it’s a philosophy, a small constellation of stone and timber overlooking a
winding riverbed that elephants sometimes use as a superhighway.
A Retreat of Earth, Sky, and Quiet Luxury
The accommodations are an understatement in elegance. Each suite is a generous cocoon of natural
textures — rough stone, hand-woven grass mats, and recycled-wood furnishings. Immense glass windows
pull the outside in, and your private deck spills onto the bushveld.
The lodge itself is intimate, with only a handful of suites designed to make guests feel as though they have
the entire reserve to themselves. Days begin with light tapping at the door as a guide delivers fresh coffee
and house-made rusks. Nights end with hot-water bottles tucked lovingly into bed. Here, luxury is not loud
— it whispers.
The Garden That Feeds the Bush
Everything that lands on your plate has a story, and many of those stories begin in Sashwa’s organic garden, a vibrant patchwork of vegetables and herbs. Under the guidance of head gardener, Believe, a softly spoken soil savant whose hands are permanently stained green, the garden thrives like a botanicalorchestra. Kale gleams like emerald satin. Aubergines shimmer in the sun. Tomatoes burst with such ripeness they perfume the air.
Whilst Sashwa are negotiating with local food growers to provide produce for the kitchen, every Tuesday, a refrigerated truck hums through the dusty roads, collecting crates of freshly harvested produce from nearby Hoedspruit.
What isn’t grown by Sashwa or the surrounding villages is sourced from a tiny market in nearby Hoedspruit— independent growers and micro-producers who know each seedling by name. No faceless wholesalers here; every ingredient has a human handshake behind it.
Wine & Wild Dogs
Even the drinks menu carries a conscience. Sashwa’s cellar leans heavily on South Africa’s Painted Wolf Wines, a boutique vintner whose profits support the conservation of endangered African wild dogs. Each
sip of Shiraz, each pour of Chenin, helps keep one of Africa’s most charismatic predators running through
the wilderness.
It’s a philosophy that extends to everything the lodge purchases. Only plant-based products make the cut,
and every producer is vetted for environmental ethos. In short: if your business doesn’t have a cause, it
doesn’t have a contract.
What’s on the Menu? A Symphony in Green
Breakfast begins with a mushroom tortilla so rich and golden it could be mistaken for sunrise on a plate.
There are thick slices of homemade sourdough, nut-butter spreads fragrant with smoked paprika, and
papaya dusted with crushed baobab.
Lunch ushers in vibrant bowls: dirty rice flecked with herbs; roasted sweet-potato and butternut salad
draped in a hummus smoother than silk; and fresh-pressed juices so bright they seem electrically charged.
But dinner is the zenith — a three-act play of texture and flavour. Cucumber carpaccio drizzled with saffron
mayo and tamari. Cauliflower steak lounging on a butter-bean purée. A slow-braised tomato broth infused
with African basil. And dessert: a poached pear in orange syrup crowned with rooibos ice cream and
sesame chards that glint like shards of amber.
Each dish feels both ancient and new, deeply African yet globally fluent.
Meet the Chef Who Taught the Bush to Cook
The architect of this culinary uprising is Chef Arabella Parkinson, a Cape-Town-based wunderkind of plant-based cuisine. To her, sustainability isn’t a garnish — it’s the main ingredient. She fuses classical training informed by principles of Ayurvedic, teaching the Sashwa kitchen to balance proteins, fibres, colours, and nutrients with the same precision a painter uses when mixing pigments. Her visits to Sashwa are 10-day marathons of creativity. She trains. She transforms. She orchestrates. And when she leaves, she maintains a constant digital thread with the team, tweaking recipes with the accuracy of a conductor tuning an orchestra.
Inside the Kitchen: Where Innovation Meets Instinct
The kitchen at Sashwa is a temple of quiet precision: spotless countertops, gleaming utensils, and a pantry
so orderly it borders on meditative. Everything is made in-house — from cashew cheese sauce to romesco
to saffron mayo. Chefs Koketso and Agree cook in rhythm with the seasons, crafting summer dishes that
sing with citrus and winter plates that feel like warm blankets.
The result? Food that’s exquisite but not fussy; refined but not detached; alive in colour, texture, and spirit.
A Different Kind of Wellness: Yoga & Meditation in the Bushveld
Cuisine may be Sashwa’s headliner, but its small riverside spa is the encore — a sanctuary where
treatments draw heavily from African botanicals with the scents of marula, hempseed, and wild rosemary
drift through open walls.
In recent years, Sashwa has expanded its philosophy beyond the plate. Wellness here is not something that
happens behind closed spa doors — it unfolds outdoors, in tune with the rhythms of the natural world.
Most mornings begin with yoga on an elevated deck overlooking the riverbed. As the sky shifts from indigo
to pale gold, Dylan Bernstein, a renowned instructor with more than two decades of teaching across Asia,
Europe, and southern Africa, guides guests through slow sequences designed to echo the bushveld’s own
measured pace. Trained in traditional Ashtanga and Buddhist movement practices — and known for his
grounding presence and breath-first philosophy — Dylan weaves elements of mindfulness, alignment, and
subtle strength into each session. His voice is unhurried, steady, attuned to the rhythm of the waking
landscape.
Impalas pick their way through the brush. Hornbills bark from treetops. The first warmth of the sun melts
the dew from the air.
In the late afternoons, meditation sessions are held beneath a sprawling nyala tree whose branches create
a cathedral of shade. Cushions are arranged in a circle. A bowl of smouldering mopane leaves sends soft
trails of scented smoke into the quiet. The practice isn’t about silence; it’s about listening — to the wind, to
the bush, to oneself.
At Sashwa, wellness is not a treatment. It’s a perspective.
Game Drives: Appetite for Adventure
Though Sashwa is a culinary destination, it hasn’t forgotten that this is still the bush — and the wilderness
remains the main event. Dawn drives begin with steaming mugs of spiced chai and unfold into slow,
thrilling journeys across riverine forest, open grassland, and mopane woodland. Guides are naturalists first
and storytellers second, their voices low and measured as they interpret tracks, bird calls, shifting winds,
and the faint rustle of unseen movement.
In the afternoons, guests can trade a traditional game drive for a sound safari — an experience born from
the idea that not all wildlife encounters need to be visual. The vehicle idles, the bush settles, and the world
narrows to the ear. Guests sit with eyes closed, headphones on, as their guide, Ian Shoebotham, interprets
the symphony unfolding around them.
Ian’s passion for acoustic ecology began years earlier, when he worked as a field researcher documenting
bird calls in the Okavango Delta. Trained in both classical guiding and wildlife sound monitoring, he has
spent more than a decade studying the way animals communicate through rhythm, pitch, and pattern. His
notebook — weathered, frayed at the edges — is filled with scrawled spectrogram sketches and phonetic
spellings of calls gathered from reserves across southern Africa.
With the sensitivity of a musician and the precision of a naturalist, he identifies the distant bark of kudu,
the rhythmic knock of a woodpecker, the soft wingbeats of a lilac-breasted roller, the faint whistle of
termites releasing alates, and the crackle of elephants stripping bark from trees. He explains how silence
itself is a soundscape — an indicator of temperature, time, and predator presence.
It is wildlife encountered through the ears rather than the eyes, a reminder that the bush speaks long
before it shows itself.
Evening drives melt into a golden hour where elephants glow like lanterns and giraffes cast shadows as long as city blocks. Sundowners arrive on cue: hibiscus spritzers, citrus-infused tonics, or a simple glass of
Painted Wolf rosé. You sip. The sun sinks. A hyena giggles somewhere in the distance.
Back at the lodge, dinner awaits — a safari for the senses following a safari for the soul.
The Future of Safari Dining
What’s happening at Sashwa isn’t a trend — it’s a transformation. It’s about reclaiming Africa’s culinary
heritage, supporting its communities, and proving that sustainability can taste sensational.
As dusk spills across the bushveld and lanterns flicker to life, the scent of roasted cauliflower and citrus
drifts through the warm evening air. Glasses clink. Someone laughs. A lion calls from far away. And
somewhere beyond the treeline, a hyena gives another approving giggle.
Because out here, in the new era of safari cuisine, the wild isn’t just something you watch — it’s something
you taste.
W: Sashwa
Written by Cindy-Lou Dale for Luxuria Lifestyle International