Join Mel Kettle on a South Africa Food Tour in May 2017. You will enjoy a multitude of foodie experiences over 12 days. The South Africa Food Tour starts in Cape Town and ends in Port Elizabeth with the opportunity to add on a Food Tour of Johannesburg and a West Coast Food Tour for seafood lovers. Just think hands on cooking classes to demonstrations by top chefs. You’ll experience wine tastings at some of the Cape’s finest estates, Cape Town Eats walking tour that teaches you about the history and culture through cuisine. A South Africa Food Tour would not be complete with a visit to the famous Garden Route (seafood and oysters here people!) and then a Big Five Wildlife safari as your finale. You have a private ‘safari house’ with your own chefs, guides, 4×4 vehicles and massive reserve to explore. You’ll experience the beauty of cooking in a South African kitchen, bush dining, desert setting and cooking classes and more on this Food Tour of South Africa.
South Africa Food Tour Highlights
- 12 day tour exploring South Africa’s finest food locations and hidden gems
- May 2017
- Travel with 7 – 10 guests accompanied by Mel Kettle PLUS the services of a local driver/guide sharing insights to the area, food, culture and landscapes.
- A$6,799 per person sharing for 7 guests.
- A$685 single supplement
- Includes VIP meet and greet, road transfers as a group on arrival and departure, accommodation and meals as per itinerary, luxury air conditioned vehicle and private driver/guide plus activities and tastings, cooking classes and more.
- Excludes flights, tipping and shopping of course!
We’ve done the research, sampled the cuisine and walked this ‘gourmet trail’ ourselves to ensure it will be a truly memorable experience that is nothing short of passionate professionalism in its presentation.
On our South Africa Food Tour You’ll visit and get behind the counters of specialty gourmet stores, organic butchers, dessert shops, wineries, cheese factories, working farms, cooking schools, vegetable distribution points and more. You’ll stay in fantastic accommodation from boutique hotels to owner run B&Bs. All the way the emphasis is on food but not without relishing where you are and other things you can see and do !
Learn about South Africa’s colourful history through cuisine, its future through your tastebuds and be in the now as you take part in cooking tours, classes, sampling and more.
Key ingredients (pardon the pun) to success of this South Africa Food Tour are:
1. Aussie Food Blogger accompanies you sharing the experience
2. Private Driver/Guide for local expertise and freedom to explore
3. Unique culinary experiences designed exclusively for Encompass Africa
3. Hands dirty not just sampling as we include cooking classes
See the full itinerary below, a promotional video on South Africa and more on South Africa Food Tour 2017.
The Cook’s Notebook – Mel Kettle
My many South African friends have shared their love of its culture and cuisine with me (thanks Jonathon, Danica and the rest of you!), from borewors on the braai to a spicy bobotie and the lip smacking melktert.
I’m incredibly excited to be partnering with Encompass Africa to present for you our inaugural Food Tour: South Africa.
If you share a passion for food, culture and adventure please join me next year! And in 2018 I’m thinking East Africa…
What you need:
1. Appetite for good food and wine
2. Taste buds ready to be challenged
3. Comfortable shoes. You don’t need to be amazingly fit.. it’s not Kilimanjaro climb just pounding the pavement in Cape Town, the Winelands and Garden Route as you eat and learn along the way!
Click on the carrots to see the catalogue which has the main South Africa Food Tour itinerary and optional add ons to explore Johannesburg or the rugged West Coast where there’s some great things to see and do with or without food!
Why South Africa? This is a no brainer. South Africa offers some of the most outstanding restaurants, chefs, food initiatives, unique flavours and stunning landscapes not to mention colourful cultures reflective in their cuisine. The geography allows for a tour where you travel from place to place in luxury vehicle avoiding additional costs of flights and wasted time in airports. You start in cosmopolitan cuisine city of Cape Town and explore the many hidden gem areas like the Karoo, Garden Route for its oysters and fresh produce. Your finale is the safari component but the Gourmet Trail experience is heightened here with bush cooking to experience South African style!
Why this time of year? Summer to Autumn: ‘Long, hot days of summer are tempered by cool evenings and dewy early mornings, making it harder to wake up early to harvest. Many summer vegetables carry on into autumn, their sweetness intensifying every day – tomatoes, beans, brinjals, peppers, basil, potatoes and chillies. Storage space spills over with pumpkins and sweet potatoes in anticipation of bright orange autumn suppers. Most exciting is the promise of rain after many dry months.’ Quote from farmer involved in the Abalimi Bezekhaya and Harvest for Hope programs, Cape Town
More about Mel Our lovely friend and food blogger, Mel loves food. We’ve known that for years and benefited from her passion with exceptional experiences shared around the table be it a picnic breakfast, lingering lunch to dinner on the back deck (thanks Mel!). Mel is also committed to public health and the vital role good food plays. Mel does volunteering for Street Food Australia, has co-hosted Fresh on Sunday on Brisbane radio 4BC and many other talks, seminars and sessions on food. Mel is writing some e-books on social media for the hospitality sector, food producers and food retail so you can see it is her life.
How did it all start for Mel? Ah, so her parents once said her first solid was blue cheese and it remains one of her top three! Like many of us, Mel has a very social family who love food and come together around the table to share hours of good cuisine, conversation and laughter. From a young age Mel baked cakes, biscuits and slices. This moved to learning more difficult techniques thanks to accepting the role a recipe places…
Fresh from Mel’s website page ‘Essentially I love everything about food. From thinking, reading, writing and talking about it, meeting the people who grow it and make it, to shopping for it, experimenting with it, cooking it, smelling, slurping, tasting, scoffing, sampling and savouring it. However I don’t do dishes. My gorgeous partner usually does that. Yes, I’m very lucky.’
See more here http://www.cooks-notebook.com.au
