Perfect on Every Plate

Question: 'How do you turn a ship?' The answer: 'Slowly'.

June saw the start of a colossal effort in Angama’s Mara and Amboseli kitchens. The time had come to overhaul our menus, relook at our plating, pore over every plate, test and taste every flavour, and distil our menus down to the perfect five days for guests of all diets.

This daunting mission fell to the entire team to execute before our guests started to arrive for Peak Season in July. Still, one thing that remained constant — our north star that will forever be unwavering that has guided us for the past 10 years of Angama’s food journey — our philosophy:

Our Food is not Fancy. Our Food is Good.

You will never see foams, gels or smears on Angama’s plates. What you will find, however, is simple, fresh, perfect dishes made by an all-Kenyan team with love. We know our guests are likely to be eating in the best fine-dining restaurants across the globe, but can they serve the perfect smashed avocado toast with a poached egg and feta to sounds of the morning bray of zebras in the shadow of a snow-capped Kilimanjaro?

We want our menus to celebrate our contemporary and eclectic nature, starting on our home turf of Kenya and the long-standing influence of Indian cuisine in East Africa. Then, we add the lighter flavours from Asia, the complex ones of the Middle East (you may or may not know how much Angama loves Yotam Ottolenghi’s food), not to forget the simple freshness of the Mediterranean. We strive for every guest to battle to choose from our menu because they want too many... So please try them all!

We want our guests to seamlessly experience Angama’s food philosophy across both lodges and Angama Safari Camp. Although the dishes are different, the feeling, style, enjoyment, and love are the same, no matter the location. Our guests are now offered personalised menus according to their diet, and at every possible turn, we celebrate seasonality and locally sourced ingredients.

The three weeks of training and planning the best five-day, three meals a day, menus across every dietary imaginable, took more work than I could have ever imagined. We trained our minds and bodies (thanks to Chef Hudson’s morning Phys Ed class) harder than ever, but as with the Angama Way, we laughed more than ever before, too.

At each lodge, we celebrated the winners of the '5 x 3 Challenge' those who embraced the change with joy, courage, teamwork, and respect for the task ahead – four of our five company values guide us in our daily tasks.

I will never forget how every dish was 'oohed and ahhed' over, dissected, reassembled, celebrated, photographed and then documented. We now know our recipes inside out, have developed a passion for perfect plating, a finesse for fine flavours and a new kitchen mantra of ‘5 x 3 = Perfect on Every Plate’.

And how slowly we felt the ship turn, guided by our North Star.