I had a bit of an aha moment as I was standing being blasted by a strong south-easter in Scarborough, watching one of the world’s most celebrated chefs crouch into a tidal pool to examine a cluster of plants clinging to the shoreline. Chef Ángel León holds three Michelin stars at Aponiente in Cádiz and two more at Alevante, and is known globally as “Chef of the Sea”.
Two Oceans, One Language
Amura is an extraordinary new restaurant that marks León’s first venture outside Spain.
I feel almost absurdly privileged to have experienced Amura’s debut across three remarkable events: a Veld & Sea foraging expedition along Cape Town’s coast with León and his team, an intimate media dinner showcasing the menu, and the launch party itself. That launch began quite memorably, with guests being handed glowing glasses of bioluminescent liquid in a darkened room. When a restaurant entrance involves marine biology as theatre, you know you’re in for something special.
The foraging trip reveals everything you need to know about how Amura came to be. León didn’t arrive in Cape Town with a predetermined Spanish menu that he’d simply transplant to South African soil. He came to listen, to learn, to explore. For two years, he and his brother Carlos, who works alongside him at Aponiente, have been studying our coastline, our marine biodiversity, the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans that makes Cape Town so unique.
It’s not that Cape Town and southern Spain are identical. Far from it. But they share something deeper: a maritime DNA, centuries of fishing traditions, cultures shaped by proximity to the sea.
“In Cádiz, we have been preserving fish with salt and vinegar for hundreds of years,” he explains as we examine a stretch of kelp forest visible through the clear water. “Here in Cape Town, you have the same traditions. Different fish, different spices maybe, but the same respect for the ocean, the same knowledge of fermentation, of fire, of preservation.”
This is what he means when he says Amura is “an homage to this shared seafaring legacy.” It’s not Spanish food in Cape Town. It’s a conversation between two coasts.
The Design: Descending into Deep Water
Before I tell you about the food (and believe me, we need to talk about the food), I need you to understand what it feels like to walk into Amura for the first time.
Award-winning South African architect Tristan du Plessis has created something extraordinary: a space that evokes the kelp forests that fringe our coastline without being literal or kitschy. You enter through the main lobby of the Mount Nelson, walk down a passage and then into the huge space that is Amura.
It’s jaw-droppingly beautiful.
Deep greens cover the walls like kelp-forest shadows. Warm timber, burnished bronze, rattan, and rich leather create layers of texture. The space is big but has been cleverly divided into more intimate smaller dining spaces, separated by large plants and furniture.
The lighting is filtered and intimate, suggesting sunlight penetrating through ocean depths. Curved forms throughout the space evoke the hull of a grand ocean liner from a bygone era, when sea travel was romance and adventure, not just transport.
At the centre of it all stands a spectacular double-height wooden wine library, accessible by a classic library ladder. It’s both sculpture and cellar, housing champagnes, reds, whites. Rare Cape terroirs sit alongside Andalusian sherries, another bridge between continents.
But the real heart of Amura is the open kitchen. This is where the theatre happens, where you watch chefs work with flame, steam, brine, and those precious foraged ingredients in full view. León is passionate about transparency. He wants you to see exactly what’s happening to your food, to understand the techniques, to witness the reverence with which his team treats every ingredient.
The Food: Cooking the Sea
At the launch events, I had the extraordinary opportunity to taste a significant portion of the menu. What Head Chef Guillermo Salazar is doing in that kitchen is remarkable. Salazar is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America whose CV includes Eleven Madison Park, Arzak, Akelare, and Gramercy Tavern.
Let’s start with the dish that’s become León’s signature: the Plankton Risotto.
It arrives at the table electric green. I mean genuinely, vibrantly green, like nothing you’ve seen on a plate before. The colour comes from phytoplankton that León farms sustainably in tanks. One kilogramme costs around €3,000 to produce. He’s careful not to harvest from the ocean itself because plankton forms the base of the marine food chain. Taking it would damage the ecosystem he’s trying to protect.
The first spoonful is a revelation. It’s deeply, intensely savoury with a pure oceanic umami that’s unlike anything else. Not fishy. It tastes of the sea in its most essential form: mineral, complex, alive. The plankton contains 50 times more Omega-3 than olive oil, but that’s almost beside the point. What matters is the flavour, this tidal pull that León describes as “the open sea on a plate.”
The risotto itself is cooked to that perfect point where each grain still has the slightest resistance. The whole dish is finished with a touch of Cape ingredients, a nod to place even within this Spanish technique.
Living Salt: Cooking with Chemistry
Perhaps the most mesmerising moment of the evening comes when León and Carlos demonstrate their “living salt” technique with prawns.
They bring out a liquid, clear and looking like water, and pour it over fresh langoustines wrapped in kelp. Then we watch, transfixed, as the liquid forms salt crystals across the surface of the shellfish, growing and spreading like frost on a window. The chemical reaction between the liquid and the prawns generates just enough heat to cook the flesh gently from the outside in.
It’s cooking as alchemy, as science, as art. It produces langoustines that are barely cooked, sweet, with a delicate salinity. They are whisked away to be de-shelled and presented back to the table enrobed with a delicately smoky sauce. This dish was a highlight for me.
PS: this dish is available on the menu, but the interactive experience of the salt cooking the fish will be included in their tasting menu.
A Menu of Revelations
The Yellowtail Tartare with Escabeche Dressing is an Aponiente signature reimagined for Cape Town. The yellowtail is impeccably fresh. You can taste the Atlantic in it. Cut into perfect slices and dressed with an escabeche that León has adapted using Cape citrus and coastal herbs we foraged days earlier. It’s bright, acidic, complex, with layers of flavour that unfold as you eat.
The escabeche technique itself is ancient, a Spanish method of preserving fish in vinegar that dates back centuries. But here it’s not about preservation. It’s about that conversation between Spanish tradition and South African ingredients.
Catch of the Day with Pickled Cape Kelp honours our cold Atlantic waters. The fish (line-caught, sustainable, often a species that would normally be considered bycatch) is cooked simply over open flame, then paired with kelp that’s been hand-foraged from local shores and pickled to bring out its briny sweetness. The kelp adds texture, salinity, a slight chew that contrasts beautifully with the delicate fish.
This is León’s philosophy in action: taking overlooked species, treating them with the same care and technique you’d lavish on premium fish, and proving that “humble” ingredients can be transcendent.
The Pickled West Coast Mussels with Seaweed-Dusted Chips might sound casual, but it’s anything but. The mussels are plump and sweet, the pickling liquid perfectly balanced. And those chips, dusted with pulverised seaweed that adds an extra dimension of ocean flavour, are dangerously good.
We also tasted Saldanha Bay Oysters done three ways. The spring onion foam was my favourite. They were paired with Silverthorn’s “River Dragon” bubbly made from Colombard, one of the Cape’s earliest grape varieties. The wine’s gentle effervescence and bright acidity cut through the oysters’ creaminess, whilst the Colombard’s slight tropical notes complement the sea’s minerality.
There’s a Prawn Toast that sounds rather simple. Although the classic Thai dish inspires it, this is one of the most delicious items on the menu.
There are a few remarkable dishes on the menu, too.
A lot of thought has gone into the drinks menu, with a selection of cocktails infused with sea plants.
The wine list has been carefully selected to pair with the menu from producers such as Fryers Cove, who incorporate the ocean in their winemaking process.
The wine list also features AA Badenhorst Palomino, a West Coast expression of a classic Spanish varietal. It’s another bridge: Andalusia and Africa in a single pour.
Why Cape Town?
During the launch, someone asks León why he chose Cape Town for his first restaurant outside Spain. He’d had offers from London, New York, Tokyo. Arguably easier markets, certainly more obvious choices for a chef of his calibre.
His answer is simple and deeply felt: “Cape Town is like Cádiz. You have two oceans meeting here, just like we have the Mediterranean and Atlantic. You have incredible marine biodiversity, fishing traditions that go back centuries, and a coastline that is wild and beautiful. And you have…” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “You have a city that looks to the sea with history in its bones.”
It’s true. Both cities are defined by their relationship with the ocean. Both have served as waypoints for exploration and trade. Both have culinary traditions built on preserving fish, on respecting the rhythms of the sea, and on understanding that the ocean is both generous and fragile.
Working with General Manager Markus Fiedler, whose CV includes The Test Kitchen, Salsify at The Roundhouse, and Copenhagen’s legendary Noma and Geranium, León has assembled a team that understands this vision. They’re not just running a restaurant. They’re starting a conversation about how we engage with our oceans.
A Restaurant Built on Purpose
What becomes clear, both during the foraging trip and at the launch, is that Amura isn’t just about serving exceptional food. It’s built on purpose, on intention, on a deep commitment to marine conservation.
León has spent years researching overlooked marine species at Aponiente’s R&D laboratory. He’s introduced the world to ingredients like Zostera marina (a sea grain that behaves like rice but grows entirely underwater, requiring no freshwater irrigation, pesticides, or arable land), cultivated phytoplankton, and championed bycatch species that would otherwise be discarded.
His work earned him recognition as a Food Hero by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 2023. Aponiente holds not just three Michelin stars but also a Michelin Green Star for sustainability, the first in Andalusia.
“My dream as a chef is to end up cooking proteins that come from the sea without them being the obvious scales and fish,” he’s said. “Maybe we will come to a point where the main protein is algae that tastes like barnacles, has the texture of steak, which I’ll grill and say it’s a new way of eating.”
At Amura, that dream takes a significant step forward. Every dish on the menu reflects this philosophy: celebrate the overlooked, reduce fishing pressure on popular species, prove that sustainability and exceptional flavour aren’t mutually exclusive.
A Watershed Moment
Standing on that rocky shore with León, tasting plants that connect two continents, I understood something important: Amura isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a statement about how we can engage with the ocean differently, more thoughtfully, more sustainably.
The food at Amura is exceptional, technically brilliant, flavour-forward, genuinely innovative. The design is stunning. The team is world-class. But what makes Amura significant is the intention behind it all.
This is a three-Michelin-starred chef at the peak of his career, bringing decades of research and a completely new culinary language to Cape Town, whilst simultaneously learning from our marine biodiversity and respecting our coastal traditions. “We didn’t come to impose. We came to learn,” León emphasised. And that humility, combined with his extraordinary vision, is what makes this feel like a watershed moment for our city’s dining scene.
Yes, it’s positioned firmly in the fine-dining realm. This isn’t a restaurant for every week. But for those seeking meaning in their meals, stories about their surroundings, and a genuine connection to the ocean that defines Cape Town, Amura delivers something profound.
With Amura, the iconic Mount Nelson has added something entirely new to her storied history: a restaurant that speaks the ocean’s language, that bridges continents, that looks to the future whilst honouring ancient traditions.
I feel extraordinarily privileged to have been part of the launch week. I will share more about the extraordinary Veld & Sea day on my social media soon.
Amura by Ángel León
Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel
76 Orange Street, Gardens, Cape Town
Bookings: restaurantreservations.mnh@belmond.com or via DinePlan
R200 deposit per person required
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