Safari Food

Planning menus, sourcing ingredients, preparing delicious dishes and serving them to our guests in a dazzling choice of settings is what the Angama team loves to do best. No matter the time of day, there’s always something delicious to be had.

OUR GUESTS NEVER GO HUNGRY

  • We serve “classical safari food” — simple yet delicious, fresh and filling, with more than a nod to local Kenyan cuisine (and a bit of Yotam Ottolenghi)
  • Our menu changes every day and is always à la carte. Not a buffet in sight. And the best freshly baked bread on safari — anywhere!
  • We cater to just about all dietaries: vegan, vegetarian, celiac, religious and cultural
  • For those interested in tasting some of our team’s favourite foods, you’ll enjoy our Kenyan platter: nyama choma, ugali and kachumbari
  • If you’re peckish between meals, there’s always a stash of Maasai honey biscuits in your tented suite and a variety of ‘bitings’ (a lovely East African word for snacks) in the evenings — samosas, chicken skewers, crudité and crisps

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Dining at Angama Mara

Some of our guests’ favourite memories are of the delicious food served with a sweet smile where you want it and when you want it. Indoors, outdoors, by the pool, with a view. In fact, just as important as the food itself is where we serve it.

EAT WHERE AND WHEN YOU LIKE

There’s no lack of food and no shortage of places to dine either, from your tented suite to out and about in the Mara Triangle.

Quick Facts:
Breakfast on your tent deck, at the lodge watching the hot-air balloons float by, or a picnic in the Mara Triangle amongst the herds
Amble over to the Guest Area for brunch, lunch or tea — or have it pool-side at the Pavilion
Enjoy dinner cooked over the coals in a lantern-lit forest, on the baraza overlooking the Mara, next to the Library fireplace, or an elegant candlelit meal in your tented suite
 

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SAFARI PICNIC

What can compete with a picnic in the middle of nowhere: served under a lone tree on the short-grass plains of the Maasai Mara with only giraffe, elephant and buffalo as your dining companions.

Quick Facts:
Enjoy your specially-packed tiffin box filled with a breakfast sandwich, yogurt and granola, a freshly-baked muffin, fruit, passionfruit lemonade, coffee or tea
Taking a picnic with you allows you to stay out longer, drive further — all the way to the Tanzanian border — and return for lunch. If you’d like to leave at sunrise and return at sunset for a full-day safari, then make it a double picnic day!
 

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SHAMBA-TO-TABLE

Pick your own vegetables for the freshest imaginable salads in our beautiful one-acre kitchen garden, the Shamba, a well-earned lunch straight from the source to be enjoyed under towering moth trees. The freshest of salads along with crusty bread, local cheese, chilled rosé and the Mara as a backdrop — what could be better?

Quick Facts:
Explore the Shamba with your Shamba Keeper who explains the wealth of produce around you
Pick and taste along the way: a sprig of mint, tomatoes, a lettuce leaf or a mango (if it’s ripe, of course)
The Shamba is also the perfect location for sundowner drinks and bitings
READ MORE
 

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OUT OF AFRICA PICNIC

In a nod to Out of Africa, which was filmed on the same site where Angama Mara now stands, the lodge offers intimate private picnics for two on the Out of Africa kopje featured on the movie’s iconic poster. Chequered blankets, comfy cushions, canvas safari chairs, a picnic and sparkling wine on ice – everything you might need for your own romance story.

Quick facts:
Ideal for two, these picnics can be set up for a maximum of four guests
The kopje is reached by taking a short walk up the hill, escorted by a guide
Picnics can be enjoyed any time of day — breakfast, lunch or just before sunset
With such spectacular surrounds, photographic opportunities are many; such a setting is perfect for honeymoons, anniversaries and wedding proposals
Read more
 

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EAT LOCAL

Kenyan cuisine is deeply influenced by Arab-inspired Swahili dishes from the coast and Indian food, from the significant community that has called this country home for many generations. In turn, we are inspired by and create our meals from the finest ingredients from all over Kenya.

Quick facts:
Beautiful vegetables from the highlands
Tropical fruits a-plenty from the coast
Cheese from a renowned supplier just outside Nairobi
Prawns from Malindi
Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria
Beef from the north of the country
 

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FOREST BBQ

Angama Mara’s signature family-style barbeque is where  chefs grill to perfection fat juicy steaks, prawns or Swahili-spiced kuku (chicken is Kenya’s most-loved dish) and our famous bread cooked on sticks. In a lovely forest near the lodge, lit with lanterns and serenaded by a hyena chorus, it’s ‘out there’, it’s relaxed and most of all, delicious.

Quick facts:
The Forest BBQ location is just a few minutes’ drive from the lodge
Guests dine family-style at long, wooden tables, off enamel plates with dishcloths for napkins
After dinner, you will be driven back to the Guest Area where a surprise awaits
 

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OUT OF AN AFRICAN KITCHEN

As so many guests request recipes, it seemed much simpler just to publish a cookery book, featuring Angama’s best-loved dishes. Drawing inspiration from that beautiful movie, Out of Africa,  Out of an African Kitchen celebrates our lodge, our chefs, our guests, our setting overlooking the beautiful Maasai Mara and the stories that bind us. It is also a quirky anthology of reminiscences, anecdotes and stories from a bush kitchen set high up on the edge of the Great Rift Valley.

Read more
 

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OUR CHEFS

It is a daunting challenge to prepare food in the middle of nowhere, for guests who come from all four corners of the world, different culinary cultures and who, quite rightly, expect the best of the best when it comes to choosing where to stay on their next holiday. In creating our ‘classical safari food’, our chefs are inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, chef, restauranteur and food writer – known at Angama as Chef O, but also the wonderful flavours of Kenyan cuisine  and produce sourced from across the country.

 

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All About Your Food

Our kitchen philosophy is that nothing is too much trouble, with every meal cooked and served with love. Below you will find further information on how we cater for guests with special dietary requirements.

WHAT ARE YOUR REQUIREMENTS?

Gluten free? Easy. Vegan? No problem. Low sodium, kosher, no garlic, Chinese, food allergies, Halaal and food preferences are all in a day’s work. The children only like fish fingers. Done. Soymilk, almond milk? In the pantry. Nearly a third of our menu is vegetarian, for those who can’t get enough of the abundant fruits and vegetables Kenya has to offer.

KOSHER FOOD AND PREPARATION

For our kosher guests, Angama Mara has a small kosher stand-alone kitchen which is completely separate to the lodge kitchen and is fully equipped with everything needed for the preparation of kosher meals. This includes kosher crockery, cutlery, cooking utensils, pots and pans, charcoal grill, cooking top, refrigeration and washing-up facilities. The kitchen is kept locked at all times other than when in use for kosher guests or by a kosher chef. The kosher kitchen can prepare meals for up to 12 guests.

A MENU FOR CHILDREN

When it comes to family safaris, we cater for our young guests by offering children’s menus, along with gastronomic adventures. Children can be a “Baker for a Day” in the Angama Mara kitchen, where they’ll learn how to make something delicious for the rest of the family.

Do you have more questions?

Contact us

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