At the Mount Nelson Hotel, April brings a particularly thoughtful collaboration. Over two evenings, Amura by Ángel León will host a four-hands dinner with León and Kobus van der Merwe of Wolfgat.
Taking place on April 26 and 27, it’s one for diners drawn to cooking deeply connected to place and the quieter, more personal stories that shape what ends up on the plate.
Both León and Van der Merwe are shaped by the coast, though in very different ways. León, best known for his work at Aponiente, Spain, has built a career around exploring the sea’s lesser-known ingredients, often pushing into unexpected territory.
Van der Merwe’s cooking, by contrast, is quieter and deeply local, grounded in the rhythms of the West Coast and the indigenous strandveld that surrounds his restaurant in Paternoster.
At Amura, these two approaches meet under the guidance of head chef Arlind Harizaj, who brings them into a single, cohesive menu. The six-course tasting menu is expected to move gently between these perspectives, balancing technical precision with a more instinctive, place-led sensibility. It’s less about contrast for its own sake and more about finding common ground, where flavour, memory and landscape overlap in subtle ways.
There’s a natural ease to the pairing. Both chefs cook with a kind of attentiveness that resists excess, focusing instead on what an ingredient can become when handled with care.
“Amura was conceived as a space where chef Ángel León’s pioneering marine cuisine could engage meaningfully with the exceptional ingredients and coastal heritage of the Cape,” says Patrick Fisher, general manager of the Mount Nelson.
“Kobus shares a similarly thoughtful relationship with landscape and seasonality, making this collaboration a natural dialogue between two distinctive culinary voices shaped by the sea.”
For diners, the appeal lies in that sense of dialogue. With just 35 seats available each evening, the experience is intentionally intimate, allowing the food and the ideas behind it to take centre stage.
Amura’s Four-Hands Dinner takes place on April 26 and 27, with reservations priced at R2,650 per person. In keeping with the intimate nature of the experience, seating is limited to 15 guests at 7pm, followed by two smaller seatings of 10 guests at 7.30pm and 8pm.
Bookings through DinePlan or by emailing reservations.mnh@belmond.com.
