At Qunu at the Saxon, culinary heritage on a silver platter

Bhanana ka Shaka dessert. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

By Anna Trapido

16 May 2025

Indigenous ingredients and traditional flavours meet fine wine and gourmet grandeur at the Saxon Hotel.

Over the past 25 years, Qunu restaurant at the Saxon Hotel has built a reputation for magnificent meals, paired with wonderful wines and superb service. Luxury dining on par with the best served in Paris or New York has always been the order of the day. Which would be more than enough almost anywhere else.

The challenge for the Saxon is that their guests are among the luckiest 1% of humanity — if they wanted to be in Paris or New York that is where they would be. And have been. They have chosen to be in Johannesburg, and they are increasingly asking for epicurean experiences that are infused with the taste of the terroir.

They want a culinary combination of local relevance, authenticity, sustainability, exclusivity, innovation and storytelling. Dining on indigenous ingredients and flavours that they won’t find anywhere else is de rigueur. They understand that, done right, this kind of hyperlocal cuisine not only heightens freshness, flavour and biodiversity but also reduces food miles, lowering environmental impact and supporting regional farmers and artisanal producers.

Aside from the unsavoury irony that many espousing such views have logged long-haul miles on private jets, their advocacy of terroir-specific tastes carries considerable merit. This way of cooking encourages chefs to use food as a medium for expressing identity, crafting dishes that reflect personal, cultural, environmental and historical narratives. Craft becomes art as chefs embrace where they are and who they are.

The Saxon’s Taste of Tradition six-course dinner held on 24 April 2025 was part of a broader project whereby Executive Chef Matthew Foxon and his team are incorporating indigenous ingredients into their work, aiming to associate local flavours with avant-garde excellence. This event was curated in conjunction with African Foodways Productions and the wines of Leeu Passant. Everyone involved sought to challenge existing assumptions about which food genres “belong” in fine dining restaurants.

Leeu Passant honours South African history. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

Leeu Passant’s consistent commitment to heritage, biodiversity preservation and terroir-driven winemaking resonated with the evening’s overall objectives. As Leeu Passant co-owner and winemaker Andrea Mullineux explained: “We decided very early on that we wanted to focus on South African heritage and on varieties with historical significance.”

Her husband and business partner, Chris Mullineux, continued: “We always tell people [that] if you taste a South African chenin or Syrah, don’t expect it to taste like one from the Loire or Burgundy — those varieties have adapted to our climate. They express our landscape and our stories. We shouldn’t be trying to copy or imitate other countries. What we have in South Africa is unique and should be celebrated.”

Full disclosure: my colleague RJ Van Spaandonk and I are African Foodways Productions. We came up with this concept, introduced the chefs to heritage food farmers, brought the winemakers on board and drew up the glossary of ingredients given to guests. After that we sat back and let the chefs and sommeliers work without interference.

Given my involvement, it would be politic to gush about the evening, but someone once said of me that “Anna is incapable of dissembling” — which is probably just posh politespeak for “she is tactless and spends a lot of time with her foot in her mouth”. Consequently, what follows is an honest account of the evening. Everything was interesting but some parts worked better than others.

We began with bouffant dombolo steamed breads, golden crisp magwinya beignet and a lovely Limpopo-style mango atchar that glowed its traditional atomic orange. This being the super smart Saxon, most of the oil that usually comes with the fruit pickle had been drained, reducing the risk of fancy fingers and designer white shirts becoming turmeric-stained.

Unlike the rest of the evening (where pairing belonged to Leeu Passant), our bread course was accompanied by marula fruit wine made by the hotel’s Food and Beverage Manager, Ashwin Ryan.

A deep yellow, rich and buttery ostrich egg scramble followed. It was dotted with umami-intense Kalahari truffle shavings and tart amasi aïoli. Shards of Aromat “vukoko” (mielie meal pap bottom of the pot crisp) brought a playful, nostalgic element, puncturing potential pomposity. Wine and eggs can be complicated partners but sommelier Jusa chose Leeu Passant Radicales Libres 2019 because of “its oxidative character with sherry-like, nutty notes, and caramelised, aged tones which I think work beautifully with the savoury depth of egg and truffle, creating a luxurious, layered start to the menu”. Indeed it did.

The earthy antiquity of ostrich eggs and Kalahari truffles matched the historical importance of the winemaking technique. As Andrea Mullineux explained: “This Chardonnay that we make from Stellenbosch has an amazing natural acidity and natural structure to it which has allowed us to push the limits — to look back at the historical wines that were made traditionally in South Africa. They were sweet wines, fortified wines and oxidative wines like sherry. Wines that developed a flora, yeast growth on top that protected it.

“With oxidative wines you have to start with a special vineyard with naturally high acidity and naturally beautiful structure because this wine is aged in barrel for five full years. You can imagine those travellers moving around the world and using the Cape as a base needed wines that had that structure, had that acidity and had that protection to be able to survive in the vats and barrels while they were on ships. Radicales Libres is an homage to that endurance.”

Smoked tilapia with amadumbe and curry oil. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

Leeu Passant Chardonnay 2023 (not the same Chardonnay as above) accompanied smoked tilapia on amadumbe with curry leaf oil and a sweet potato foam. Qunu Head Chef Scott Dressels explained that his inspiration for this course came from his memories of childhood fishing trips. I loved the story, but I wasn’t sure that the tale carried through into the tastes. The fragrant curry leaf oil was elegant, the amadumbe had a pleasant, earthy sweetness and the tender fish flaked prettily, but none of it captured the robust joyful flavours of a child catching and cooking a fish on a fire. The roasted root vegetable blocks enjoyed the Chardonnay’s citrus brightness while its creamy texture melded well with the foam and oil, but the wine utterly overpowered the delicate fish.

Pressed tongue with tripe, isijingi and pickled cabbage. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

The glorious pressed tongue topped with fried mogodu, isijingi and pickled cabbage more than made up for the fish that got away. Diners were offered a choice of either Leeu Passant 2023 Wellington Old Vines Cinsault or the 2023 Leeu Passant Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Inspired by the idea of matching traditional varietal (Cinsault) with traditional food, I picked the former. The intensely savoury, beefy tongue was firm yet juicy. Textural pleasure came by way of a curl of deep-fried tripe — its honeycombed ridges formed a crunchy armour around the interior of still tender and chewy offal. I wasn’t sure about the presence of isijingi on the offal plate.

I have only ever encountered intyabontyi indigenous melon and maize meal porridge as a stand-alone dish. I love classically presented isijingi and I am still not sure if I should object on its behalf that the creamy, sweet, herbal smoky joys were relegated to a secondary starch side. Pickled cabbage acted as an acerbic foil for the other elements. My isijingi angst notwithstanding, Cinsault’s rose petal perfume, vibrant red fruit and restrained tannins provided an exquisite aromatic counterpoint to the carnivorous ensemble.

Sorghum and cowpea melange with braised lamb. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

A horned cucumber sorbet palate cleanser provided crisp clarity before we moved on to Saxon Head Chef Oscar Ndlovu’s braised lamb with cowpea and sorghum melange. The meat was beautifully cooked and eat-with-a-spoon tender, but I wondered if the robust sorghum and cowpea pea stew wouldn’t have been better partnered with the leaner, more umami-forward flavours of goat.

Sorghum’s chewy, nutty bite made a great taste and textural contrast with the buttery, vegetal softness of the cowpeas. Sommelier Jusa explained that he “paired this dish with the Leeu Passant 2022 because red berry, leafiness connects beautifully with the lamb, and the wine’s structured elegance is an ideal foil for the generous earthy cowpeas and sorghum”.

Bhanana ka Shaka dessert. (Photo: RJ van Spaandonk)

Pastry Chef Catherine Adonis gave khova (aka bhanana ka Shaka) the royal treatment. She highlighted the Zulu heritage fruit as a banana bread base, an ice cream and as a caramelised garnish. A spiced caramel and milk tart custard topped the banana bread while the ice cream sat on a crumble of toasted marula nuts. Khova have a firm yet silky flesh and a floral, honeyed sweetness gentler than super sweet Cavendish supermarket bananas.

There is also a citrus and green apple-like tart tinge which made for a dynamism on the palate that would have been missing from the bog standard bananas. Flaky shards of feuilletine, the crunch of a treacle tuile biscuit and the marula nut crumble made for great contrast against the smooth mouthfeel of milk tart custard and excellent ice cream. Tragically, the truly magnificent dessert had no wine pairing. This felt like an unfortunately abrupt end. A sentence without a full stop. I wondered why the marula wine from the start of the evening had not been deployed here instead of with the bread.

Minor marula wine quibbles aside, the evening was a fully booked success. It was undoubtedly an experience that the gourmet guests could not have had anywhere else in the world.

Let’s leave the last word to Qunu restaurant manager Raymond Tshabalala, who observed: “It’s something that I always wanted to incorporate. It’s important, especially in a place like this, where there are different people coming from all different parts of the world. We are talking to a lot of international guests. More actually than local guests.

“They are always asking what is traditional to eat here? What is your signature dish? So having an African dish that is nicely modernised but still cooked with the flavours that we as South Africans know, I think it really puts our restaurant on the map.” DM

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