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Epicurean
It’s always exciting to see change and development in the hospitality business, and all around Zimbabwe operators are gearing up for the ongoing surge in tourist arrivals by upgrading product and adding a fresh new look to all their business operations.
In Harare, Cresta Hotels is undertaking a $2,5 million refurbishment of its Cresta Oasis Hotel and Apartments operation in the CBD, and although work there is not quite finished I joined a group of travel and tourism leaders for a delightful luncheon in the hotel’s newest banqueting venue, the Mawuya Room.
We enjoyed a meal of Zimbabwean cuisine, straight off the menu at the adjoining Café Afrique, which has also been renovated and looks sparkling and new.
The group of travel and tourism heads is now meeting for over-luncheon chats on a regular basis, keeping in touch and sharing ideas and information; it is fascinating to be exposed to this very positive and very-forward-looking group of people, who include hotel group and airline bosses, as well as people like Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe CEO Paul Matamisa.
Before the luncheon, Cresta Hotels CEO Chipo Mandela and her team showed the guests some of the new things, including the wonderful new public bar, which was previously where our banqueting room now stands and is now in the old night club area on the east side of the hotel.
Chipo Mandela told her guests that Cresta Oasis reflects an African roots ambience, so the new look has an Afro-centric feel, and the cuisine at Café Afrique, long focused on local cuisine, retains that content and has even added to the menu with some new taste treats. Group executive chef Brian Ndlovu and the hotel’s Chef Petronella put together a super meal for us, and backed it with the most delightful and colourful display area.
After a welcome mahewu or mawuyu drink, the diners started with a choice of madora with chillies, roasted and salted groundnuts, mutakura with nyimo, nyemba, mumhare and groundnuts, green mealies, mazhanje, masawu, mangoes and nzimbe, as well as pumpkin croquettes. There were also salads for starters or to accompany the mains (wild cucumbers — amagaka; sour milk — hodzeko). Our main course offered a choice of mazondo, oxtail, road runner chicken, goat stew, chimukuyu in peanut butter and bream.
Accompanying these were sadza rezviyo, brown rice with peanut butter, white sadza, rape in peanut butter and muboora in peanut butter.
The desserts even showed a local flavour: fruit skewers with honey, or a baobab flour cake.
It was altogether a treat for the eyes and for the palate, and everyone enjoyed the selection. I must say the oxtail, which is often tougher in the traditional manner than in western-style serving, was absolutely delicious: flavoursome and exceptionally tender; among the best I have had since the days of Nick Mandeya’s traditional oxtail stews at Adrienne’s restaurant in the Belgravia shopping centre — a restaurant remembered with great fondness and never to be forgotten.
Away from the local flavours, some of us also enjoyed a refreshing mojito cocktail at the start of the meal, and even those of us who usually don’t like alcohol in the daytime thrilled to its taste and to the buzz from just one self-indulgent midday tipple. We ended with coffee.
The Mawuya Room is sited where the bar stood for many years and it was almost impossible to remember how it looked; the room is bright and sparkling, with lots of light and air and a charming side lounge for VIPs and for mini-breakaways during conferences.
This room adds to the number of conference rooms available in this hotel, much of the business for which is from events and conferencing. As reported in the Saturday Herald Lifestyle section a couple of weeks ago, the bedrooms are looking great, and all is set for this
hotel to get more and more international visitors, especially from across Southern Africa, which is a key market for
Oasis.
This is the second week in a row that I have had traditional Zimbabwean cuisine for this column and I have to say that Cresta Oasis is a venue I can recommend as having reasonably-priced and good-quality local treats that will be not just for us Zimbabweans but also for the internationals who want to try out our culinary styles while here.
I recommended Café Afrique this past week to a friend in the diplomatic community and she reported favourably on her findings there for supper.
Cresta Oasis Hotel and Apartments, home of Café Afrique, is on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue between Fifth Street and Sixth Street (the entrance no longer in Nelson Mandela Avenue — the old entry port is now a delighted walled-off garden with a fountain feature as the centrepiece!).
There’s secure parking on site, day or night, and the restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Traditional food is also served lunchtimes around the pool deck, at rates that are amazing but without the sophisticated surrounds of Café Afrique, and I gather these lunches are well subscribed by folks working in the area. Call (024) 2790881-4 for enquiries and reservations.
Feedback is always welcome and can be sent to [email protected].
Your last chance to enter the Epicurean’s exclusive competition running to Christmas: let me know your top three favourite restaurants in Zimbabwe (and why) and you will be in the running for some vouchers for meals at restaurants that have kindly donated prizes. Send to the same e-mail address.
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