Chef Ryan's Winter Menu at Tanda Tula in the Timbavati

Every season has its own rhythm.

One of my favourite things about winter at Tanda Tula is that it slows everyone down. Out here in the Timbavati, the mornings are crisp, the days are warm but not hot, and somehow everything feels like it has a little more time.

That suits me – some of my favourite food takes its time too.

This season I've finally had the chance to cook a few dishes I've been thinking about for years.

Two black bowls on a stainless steel counter: a mezze-style plate with chicken skewers, crisp pastry, hummus, tzatziki and a Greek-style salad, and a seared salmon salad with orange segments, radish, cucumber and red onion.

Overhead view of a black bowl on a terracotta surface holding two small house-made bread rolls filled with shredded lamb rendang and topped with diced pickle, red onion, cream and microgreens, with ramekins of chutney and cream alongside.

A chef in a white cap and Tanda Tula apron scattering chopped herbs from a small ramekin over a black bowl of fresh ribbon pasta in the kitchen.

Some things are worth waiting for

I've always enjoyed cooking things that don't need me hovering over them. A slow braise. A potjie – a traditional South African cast-iron pot that cooks gently over the fire. Once it's going, you forget about it for a while and let the magic happen. Maybe that's why I've always wanted a proper pot pie on the menu.

It starts as a potjie. A good old-fashioned oxtail spends five or six hours slowly braising until the meat falls from the bone. We fold it back into the gravy with hearty vegetables, spoon it into little cast-iron pots, cover each one with pastry and bake them to order.

It's honest comfort food. The kind that warms you up without trying too hard.

That's probably why it's my favourite dish on the menu.

Overhead view of a diner lifting the cast-iron lid from a small pot pie with a golden puff pastry top, set on a black plate with a woven mat, cutlery and a glass of red wine. — The lid comes off at the table. Underneath is oxtail that has had five or six hours to itself, folded back into its gravy and finished with pastry baked to order.

Where ideas find their place

I've wanted to put a proper bunny chow – a South African favourite from KwaZulu-Natal, where curry is served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread, with the soft centre used for dipping – on the menu for as long as I can remember. I just hadn't found its place at Tanda Tula, until now.

That's one of the things I enjoy most about working with Hannah Lewry, our food consultant.

Hannah is always looking at what's happening around the world. I'm usually asking how those ideas fit here, in the Timbavati. She keeps us looking forward, while I make sure everything still feels grounded in this place.

That's how this menu came together.

Winter gives us beautiful citrus like oranges and grapefruit. Avocados are at their best too. We build the menu around what's in season, sourcing as much as we can from within a 50-kilometre radius. If something isn't at its best, we'd rather change the dish than fly it in.

That's just not how we cook.

A stack of whole dark green avocados on a speckled cream stoneware plate, lit softly against a muted olive wall. — Avocados at their best, waiting their turn. If the produce is not right, the dish changes rather than the ingredient.

When we started talking about the bunny chow, it finally clicked.

Instead of the traditional curry filling, we went with fragrant lamb rendang. Coconut instead of heat. Proper shredded lamb instead of mince. Hannah suggested serving it in little house-made breads rather than one big loaf, and together we worked on a recipe that stayed beautifully soft and light. With avocado in season, it was the perfect time to bring that freshness onto the plate too.

It just fits. Street food made boujee.

South African food is wonderfully layered. People often think it begins and ends with a braai – it doesn't. There's an incredible Indian food heritage on the eastern side of our country, and every menu gives us another chance to brush off old recipes, revisit ideas we've been carrying around for years and give them a place on the table.

Guests from overseas often don't know what a bunny chow is. I love that. Getting to share it with someone for the first time never gets old.

A member of the Tanda Tula team holding a dark ceramic bowl containing two filled bread rolls topped with pickle, cream and microgreens, with small ramekins of chutney and cream. — Carried out to the table. For a lot of our overseas guests, this is their first bunny chow.

Every dish earns its place

Not every dish arrives fully formed. Some make you earn them, and that's just part of the process.

When we think we've got a dish where it needs to be, we don't just put it on the menu. We present it to a tasting panel made up of our team on the ground. Different people, different palates, different opinions.

If everyone comes back saying, "This is fantastic," then we know we're onto something. If they don't, we go back to the kitchen.

The Asian-inspired prawn toast certainly kept us there.

One person thought there was too much bread. Another thought the portion was too big. Someone else felt something still wasn't quite right.

It just wasn't consistent enough to call it a win, so we kept working.

Eventually we swapped the bread for a crisp tortilla. That was the version everyone agreed on.

I think I appreciate that dish more because it made us earn it. Looking back, I think that's true of the whole menu.

That's why being recognised for Best Safari Cuisine 2026 means so much. Not because we were chasing an award, but because by the time a dish reaches the table, it's already had many people trying to make it better.

A bearded chef in a Tanda Tula apron working torn bread on a white board while a smiling colleague in a white chef's cap and Tanda Tula apron stands beside him, in a bright commercial kitchen. — Bread work at the pass. Every new dish is put in front of the team here before it is put in front of a guest.

The guest who changed the menu

One afternoon a guest looked at the lunch we'd prepared and humbly asked if we could make aglio e olio instead. One of the waiters came into the kitchen looking completely puzzled and asked, "What on earth is aglio e olio?"

So we made it.

Fresh tagliatelle, garlic, chilli, parsley, olive oil. That's all.

The guest spent the next three days talking about that bowl of pasta.

That story stayed with us. So, when Hannah and I started planning the new menu, I brought it up again. I just knew we had to make this a fixture.

A chef in a white cap and Tanda Tula apron lifting a large sheet of pale yellow fresh pasta dough from a stainless steel roller in the kitchen. — The pasta sheet comes off the roller. No dried pasta, no shortcuts.

The only problem was that if we were going to do it, we had to do it properly. No dried pasta, no shortcuts.

We make the dough ourselves. Every portion of tagliatelle is rolled to order, then cooked straight away.

A single long ribbon of fresh pale yellow pasta hanging from stainless steel tongs above a pot of boiling water, with a smiling chef out of focus behind. — One ribbon, rolled and cut to order, going straight into the water.

It may seem like the simplest dish on the menu, but it's also the one that takes us the longest to make. It's a real labour of love. I always say it loves you back.
— Chef Ryan Mullett

It's light, it hits the spot. You finish it feeling satisfied, not overwhelmed.

A dark speckled bowl of fresh ribbon pasta dressed with olive oil, chopped parsley and chilli, dusted with grated hard cheese and topped with a lemon wedge, on a linen tablecloth with wooden mills and an aloe behind. — Garlic, chilli, parsley and olive oil on hand-rolled pasta, finished with grated hard cheese and a wedge of lemon. The simplest thing on the menu and the longest to make.

Nothing left to chance

When Hannah and I sit down to plan a menu, we usually end up having the same two debates. Hannah brings the inspiration. I'm usually the one asking, "How do we make this work for everyone?"

We don't want to be the kitchen that tells a guest what they can't have. We'd much rather say, "We can do that."

That's why we think about alternatives from the very beginning. If our bunny chow is built around lamb rendang, we'll develop a butternut and chickpea version alongside it. If a Caesar salad dressing traditionally relies on anchovies, we'll create one without fish. Even our mezze boards have vegetarian alternatives that still feel like they belong.

Those aren't last-minute changes. They're part of the planning, the testing and the tasting.

Making space

You ask me about the desserts and my answer is pretty simple: "That's Gerrit's space now."

Over the past few years he's taken more and more ownership of the pastry kitchen, and it's been really rewarding to watch.

That's one of the things I love most about working in a kitchen. One day you're showing someone how to do something. Then, without really noticing, you realise they don't need you looking over their shoulder anymore.

That's usually when you know they're ready.

Overhead view of four kitchen trays holding an oat and seed slab, a sheet of black and white sesame brittle, a tray of pale caramel and a dark chocolate bake. — Four trays in the pastry section: an oat and seed slab, sesame brittle, pale caramel setting and a dark chocolate bake. This part of the kitchen is Gerrit's space now.

Winter was made for this kind of food

This menu feels like a few ideas finally finding their place. Sometimes you just have to wait until the season's right.

If you're joining us at Tanda Tula this winter, I hope you'll slow down, stay a little longer and enjoy it with us.

A smiling member of the Tanda Tula kitchen team in a cap and black apron holding a peeled naartjie, standing under a golden reed ceiling. — A naartjie in hand under the reed ceiling. In winter everything here takes a little longer, and that is rather the point.

Everything's Better Given Time