Last week I was invited to experience Boscia at Tswalu, Luke Dale Roberts’ new Kalahari restaurant, and it was spectacular. I ate in the same space in 2023, when it was still Restaurant Klein JAN, so I knew the bones of the place. The historic house, the cellar beneath it, the dining room overlooking red dunes. What I didn’t know was what Luke would do with it. It is still unmistakably him. Same precise technique, same big flavours, just with less on the plate, and nothing missing.
Tswalu is South Africa’s largest privately protected reserve, 118,000 hectares on the southern edge of the Kalahari, in the Oppenheimer family’s care since 1999. Getting there feels like leaving one world for another, and the restaurant is built around that feeling.
The stoep at sunset
The evening starts at Boscia House, a cottage built in the early 1900s. I was handed a clarified pumpkin-spiced milk punch so mind-bendingly delicious that I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. Cocktails were served along with four impeccable bites on the stoep as the sun started to set. The red sand was flecked with beds of yellow daisies, and in the distance wild animals wandered past as if someone had cued them. The whole setting almost felt like a movie set, unreal in the best possible way.
The snacks are a nod to the sundowner on a game drive. One signature is the Kalahari Picnic, served in a handwoven basket made by the Cape Town Society for the Blind and filled with venison and duck rillette, a tiny pumpernickel loaf made with Lowerland grain, and pickled tsamma melon rind. Both whimsical and delicious.
The name
Boscia is named after Boscia albitrunca, the shepherd’s tree. It survives where almost nothing else can, sending its roots as deep as 68 metres to find water. For generations, people crossing the dry interior knew that where a shepherd’s tree grew, water lay below. Tswalu is home to what may be the world’s largest gathering of these trees, and the idea that something is sustained by what lies beneath the surface runs through the whole evening.
Down into the root cellar
From the stoep, you head underground into the root cellar, part gallery, part library, and part test kitchen. One wall holds clay imprints of edible and medicinal plants from the reserve, pressed by ceramicist Roché Muller. Another holds the jars. In total, there were 180 of them, all ferments, pickles, and salt-packed ingredients made in the kitchen, and almost everything you see down there ends up on your plate later. As someone with a fridge full of half-forgotten pickles, I could have stayed down there for an hour.
From there, you pass through a gallery built around Nic Bladen’s life-size bronze shepherd’s tree and into the dining room. The walls and ceiling are washed in a single colour, the kitchen sits open behind the pass, and the Kalahari is framed in the glass. Creative director Alwijn Burger wanted it to feel like sitting inside a Leica camera, looking out through the lens.
The food
Luke’s thinking at Boscia is all about restraint. “Eventually you reach a point where your confidence comes from knowing what not to put on the plate,” he says. “If you have an extraordinary ingredient, perhaps the most respectful thing you can do is cook it beautifully and allow it to taste like itself.” You taste that in every course.
Head chef Dillan Kannemeyer runs the kitchen day to day, with much of the team who cooked at Salon, which closed earlier this year after holding three stars at the Eat Out awards. Dillan calls the food “the world meeting the Kalahari”, which sums it up well. Luke’s Asian influences and classical training are applied to venison, tsamma melon, Kalahari salt, wild honey and whatever the jars downstairs have to offer.
It isn’t a tasting menu. It has five courses, several with a choice, mirroring how Tswalu runs its safaris. You set the pace rather than following a fixed itinerary.
It opens with The Feast: pork belly with grain rice, pickled vegetables and kimchi, served in a hand-beaten steel bowl made by blacksmith Conrad Hicks and paired with Lowerland’s ‘Die Wonderdraai’ 2024. The pork is carved tableside, is generous, and made for sharing.
Then the bread. A country loaf, fresh out of the oven, with hand-churned butter, amasi curd, and African dukkah, served with a glass of Jacques Bruère Blanc de Blancs 2015. I could have stopped there quite happily.
Next, we could choose between Namibian crayfish with fennel sauerkraut, a mussel ‘chowder’ glaze and turnip purée, or mushroom and truffle with a cabbage dumpling, hazelnut tosazu, and a brioche soldier. Going forward, the crayfish will be replaced with a more sustainable fish option, which tells you a lot about how this kitchen sources.
The main is springbok loin with a pithivier (a signature Luke dish) and mesquite beetroot jus, or pap en vleis with lamb neck, chakalaka and bean salad. It arrives with handmade camelthorn-wood and ramshorn knives by Anton Kock, presented in leather pouches by Hadley Craig. Every vessel and tool in the room was commissioned for a specific dish, which is the reverse of how most restaurants work, and you feel the difference.
Dessert is honey and pear with Madagascan vanilla ice cream and lemon poppy seed, or a fig and walnut frangipane with membrillo and local cheese. The evening closes with Ode to the Kalahari.
What to know before you go
Boscia is open now. Guests staying two nights or more receive one dinner, and dedicated meat, pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan menus are offered, each with the same care. The wines are all South African, and non-alcoholic herbal infusions are available if you aren’t drinking.
Reservations: reservations@tswalu.com
Everything on the plate is there because it makes sense here. Like the tree it’s named after, Boscia doesn’t give everything away at once. What a privilege it was to dine in this spectacular restaurant, in a far-flung corner of South Africa. Unforgettable in every way.
I was invited as part of a media group to experience Boscia at Tswalu, and we stayed at Tarkuni, an exclusive-use private homestead that sleeps up to 10 guests across five spacious suites. For the length of your stay, the homestead is yours. A dedicated house manager and private chef handle every detail, from meals to game drives, and a private 4×4, guide, and tracker are ready whenever you want to head out.
The house is full of shaded nooks and corners where you can retreat when you need a break from the heat, or from people. You can also book spa treatments in the house if you want to properly unwind. Here are a few pictures of the house, and of Tswalu..
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