Led by Chef Duane Lewis, the restaurant’s young and energetic chef’s team creates “Old School dishes with a modern twist” that is refreshing and contemporary and boasts dishes that represent colour, freshness and simplicity. What Duane personally likes to achieve with his cooking is to celebrate the ingredient and not the recipe. The taste of the ingredients must be kept, but by enhancing and experimenting with it he creates the most extraordinary dishes full of natural flavours and freshness!
In order to have a constant supply of freshly grown vegetables and fruit, Grootbos has started its own Social Responsibility Project called “Growing the Future”. Following the success of the Green Futures model, the Grootbos Foundation has embarked on a new training project to further our commitment to developing the local community. Growing the Future is all about food production, and eight women are trained per year in the growing of vegetables and fruit, beekeeping and the principles of successful animal husbandry. For the students the course is fully subsidised – they receive transport, tools, uniforms and all their study materials, as well as a weekly stipend to cover their living costs. From the Grootbos Foundations point of view, the project must be sustainable. To achieve this we cannot rely purely on donations and sponsorships, but part finance the project through the sale of the produce with Grootbos as the main purchaser. This is a great way in which the students also contribute towards their education through their practical work.
As a passionate Chef, Duane only uses local ingredients to ensure that our guests can smell, taste, see and experience the most tantalizing delicacies his kitchen has to offer. Therefore, he feels very privileged to be able to go outside to our own gardens to pick home-grown organic vegetables and herbs. This is one of our biggest compliments of Grootbos and as a valued patron it is the Chefs’ duty to bring only the best quality to the tables of our guests!
This is just one of the amazing advantages our Chefs have at Grootbos. As Grootbos is one of the biggest privately owned reserves in the Cape Floral Kingdom boasting more than 740 different species of fynbos, they can also revert back to a great variety of wild herbs to cook with. Duane proudly boasts with a kitchen of young South African Chefs – most of them internationally experienced. With great enthusiasm and passion, which is their secret recipe, they can accommodate and blow away any nationality of guest that stays at Grootbos!
With very few imported ingredients such as saffron, parma ham, vanilla pods, all our ingredients served at Red Indigo are local or homemade. All our pastas are being freshly made on a daily basis – Duane is even proud to say that he has blended his own olive oil. All our meat gets purchased from the Overberg region, our fish comes from Gansbaai or Hermanus harbour and our eggs from our own chickens.
It is needless to say that, when it comes to the ultimate African cuisine experience, we are playing on a different level. This is what makes our guests leave amazed by the delicacies served in a spectacular natural setting and makes them always come back for more. The combination of enjoying culinary delights in a 5-star environment and the awareness that at the same time one contributes directly to the Growing the Future project and the development of the local community emphasizes the uniqueness of the dining experience at Red Indigo.
