Our Western Kruger Restaurant Guide will tell you all about the food and cuisine you'll come across in Western Kruger. More general information about food in South Africa can be found by going to our South Africa Restaurants Guide. And don't forget to enjoy some of the shopping in Western Kruger - check out our Western Kruger Shopping Guide for hints and tips of what souvenirs you make like to take home, and where to find them.

Food & Cuisine in Western Kruger

Besides barbeque specialities, several other options such as table d'hote menus, buffets and a la carte are available within the Kruger Park premises. The eateries serve traditional as well as international cuisine.

Outside of the park, Hazyview boasts of a variety of delightful restaurants. At the pubs, you get an amazing selection of beer, wine and good food. There are very good accommodation facilities in Hazyview, including guest houses, five-star hotels and bed-and-breakfasts lodges.

South African Cuisine

‘Rainbow cuisine' is the phrase used to define South African cuisine. Indicative of the diversity of the people, it is also reflective of the cultural depth, creative spectrum and spiritual unity of a diverse group of people. Home to 40 million people who speak eleven different languages, South African cuisine is a fascinating mix of fresh and eclectic fare.

The food depicts a mix of various cultures - African, European and Asian - with a tantalizing spread that has evolved over decades. While it showcases the European food culture of the Greek, Italian, English, Portuguese, Dutch and French, it also offers the fruity sweet, sweet-sour tastes of people from the East Indies, who came to South Africa as slaves of the Dutch. Then there are the spicy curries from India and China. Not to be missed is the indigenous fare of the African tribes. To go with all this food, there is a remarkable selection of wines to choose from.

Before colonization, indigenous cuisine used a lot of fruits, bulbs, leaves, nuts, wild game and other products from wild plants. Domestication of cattle, which began 2000 years ago by Khoisan groups, brought about the use of milk products and made available fresh meat. During the colonial period, when communal land was seized, agriculture and wild harvesting reduced significantly.

South Africa's traditional cooking is sometimes referred to as ‘Cape Dutch'. This cuisine uses spices such as hot peppers, nutmeg and allspice. The Cape Dutch style owes as much to the cooking traditions of the slaves who were brought by the Dutch East India Company to South Africa from Malaysia, Bengal and Java as it does to the European traditions imported by the settlers. This is reflected in the names given to many of the dishes and also the use of eastern spices.

Local Favourites

Popular among all the ethnic groups in South Africa are the curry dishes that came with the thousands of Indian labourers who were brought to South Africa in the 19th century. South Africa offers several unique dishes like crocodile sirloins, fried caterpillars and sheep heads. All the three dishes are reputed to be delicious.

For the not-so-daring, there are several indigenous delicacies such as bobotie (which is a better version of the Shepherd's pie), biltong (which is dried, salted meat) and boerewors (farm sausages that are hand-made and grilled on an open fire). There are several varieties of biltong available in every café, both in big cities as well as little dorps. On weekends, towns are filled with the smell of spicy sosaties being grilled over the braai in houses rich and poor.

While steak houses specialise in flame-grilled aged sirloin, they also serve boerewors. If, however, you are one of those who wants to play it entirely safe, you will be happy to know that most cafes and eateries serve the regular global fare like sushi, hamburgers, pad Thai and spaghetti bolognaise. What's more, you can safely drink the tap water.