“The first time I ate a braaibroodjie was in 2022 on a farm in the Free State. I immediately ate, like, seven of them”
- Vusi Ndlovu
“I’D DESCRIBE BOMA AS AN ADULT HANGOUT SPOT WHERE YOU CAN HAVE A GREAT TIME AND ENJOY A PORK CHOP, TOO!”
The chop chef Vusi Ndlovu is referring to is a pork tomahawk served with carrot atchar and mustard greens, and it’s just one example of the fire-cooked dishes that have been keeping seats full at his latest restaurant since it opened this year.
The award-winning chef’s journey from The Marabi Club in Joburg to Cape Town’s CBD has taken him via Franschhoek, where he opened the restaurant Edge towards the end of the pandemic, followed by a pop-up at the Mount Nelson Hotel.
So why the move from the winelands? “I really felt our food had its regulars, and it was time to expose it to a bigger audience,” he says. When he and partner Absie Pantshwa were approached by Reg and Pini McDonald of The Firm — which has a portfolio that includes Harringtons and The Village Idiot — to partner with them at Boma on Bree, they leapt at the chance to establish themsleves in the heart of the Mother City. While the initial brief was to celebrate the Karoo, Vusi and his team felt this might be limiting. Instead, they came up with the idea of celebrating the diverse flavours of the Western Cape with the Karoo in mind,
