RestaurantMaasai Mara · Now launched
Cottar's 1920s Camp in Kenya's Maasai Mara launches seven themed dinner menus
A safari camp turns invasive plants, foraged berries, early expedition recipes and even baboon diets into dinners.
Cottar's 1920s Camp in the Maasai Mara has built seven themed dinner menus around the land it sits in: its plants, its people, its safari past and the pressures on its ecology. CEO Louise Cottar says the Mara is "not just a backdrop", and the menus try to put that whole world on the plate.
Some ideas are clever. The Invasive Menu works with plants from among the roughly 30 invasive species in the reserve, ending with wild nettle cake and wild mint ice cream. The Foraged Menu uses only what has been gathered by hand around camp, from Acacia nilotica bark with charred cabbage to Carissa edulis berries picked in the hills behind. In Competition with Baboons follows the theory that early humans learned foraging from other primates, opening with Lake Victoria tilapia ceviche. The 1920s Menu revives slow, fire-cooked expedition food in cast-iron potjie pots, finished with a pink gin and tonic sorbet. Maasai & Smoke smokes Maasai Wagyu over dried savannah grasses.
Alongside the menus, the Mess Tent has a new fireplace, a wine cellar and an open-air barbecue area, and there is now a bush dining site in the Olderkesi Conservancy, ten minutes from camp. This comes from the camp's own announcement, so check which menus run during your stay. It suits safari-goers who care as much about dinner as the game drive.
Our summary of a story from Supper, published 8 October 2026. Read the original
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From Supper