The North West’s agriculture and heritage is in focus with The Palace of the Lost City’s updated menu.
Wesli Jacobs, the Executive chef of The Sun City’s flagship 5-star hotel, and his team, executive sous chefs Angelo van Wyk and Mandla Nontso, put in the work to rejuvenate menus for The Grill Room, Tusk Bar, hotel pool and in-room dining.
According to Jacobs, a recent trip to Italy inspired him to bring the ethos of seasonality and fresh ingredients back home to Rustenberg.
“The brief from The Palace’s general manager Nico Myburgh was to design a menu showcasing what people in the North West traditionally eat, but presented in a manner which is world-class and five-star,” Jacobs said.
This resulted in what Jacobs calls an “Afro-Asian grill” style of cooking, using exotic mushrooms, miso paste and sesame in many dishes.
“I love Asian flavours and I have incorporated my own heritage in Durban with the food found locally around Sun City to create what we hope guests will love. When a plate of food is set before a guest, it needs to signal that they are at The Palace,” explained Jacobs.
He said the North West produced close to a third of the country’s maize so guests can expect corn cooked in a variety of creative ways.
“From chargrilled corn to creamy truffle samp and caramel corn, this is mielie as you might not have previously known it,” said the chef, who sources locally as far as possible, including free range pork and duck.
He revealed that dishes also include seared biltong crusted kudu, dukkah spiced duck breast salad, locally-farmed kabeljou cerviche, beef tartar using quail eggs source locally, seared kudu loin, braised springbok and a cumin spiced free range lamb rack.
And the vegetarian dishes include a barley butternut risotto and a chef’s soup of the day ranging from curried butternut to minted pea or wild mushroom. In addition, many dishes can be adapted to be gluten and dairy-free.
Desserts include The Palace’s contemporary take on South African classics like milk tart and sticky toffee pudding, which is served with Amarula custard and burnt, dehydrated orange.
According to the executive chef, from a sustainability perspective, many of the dishes across the menus use the same core ingredients, but the flavour profiles are different to ensure less food wastage which is a global issue.
Myburgh said their guests expect impeccable service and high-quality food and their expectations are even higher at The Palace as our reputation precedes them.
“The Palace hasn’t changed its menus in a couple of years and we are looking forward to hearing feedback from our many regular guests.
I am confident we have many new favourites in the making that will see our guests love every moment of their time at The Palace,” he said.