Floris Smith, or 'Smanga' (the Zulu word for 'surprise), is the executive chef at Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve and Wellness Retreat in the Cederberg. He chats to Malu Lambert about moon-dried tomatoes, how he went from being a classical ballet dancer to a gumboot-dancing chef, and the most annoying yet inspiring food trend of the last five years.

It must be a challenge to source fresh produce in such a remote location. How do you manage?
You’re right – the cooking isn’t the challenge, it’s getting the produce here. The road in from Clanwilliam was recently tarred, but before that it was a dirt road, which made things quite difficult. For this reason, we bake most of our pastries and bread on the premises and all our meat and dairy is sourced from local farms. We have our own vegetable and herb garden on the premises, so we don’t actually need much from the outside world.

What is your food philosophy?
Honest-to-goodness food. Food made with phenomenal produce. Seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, such as the uniquely fragrant Hantam Karoo lamb.

On your menu, certain items are marked with an F, R, H or V. What does this mean?
The Cederberg is the heart of rooibos country, so we use the tea in a lot of our dishes. When you see an R next to a dish that means we’ve used the tea in some way. We can smoke duck breast with it, or even make rooibos chilli syrup to serve with prawns. The F stands for “fynbos”, the uses of which are endless. The H stands for “healthy” and the V for “vegetarian”.

There are many savoury elements on your dessert menu, such as balsamic ice cream and carrot halva samoosa. Why did you decide to go this route?
We like to be different here. I eat out quite a lot, and I always find the dessert menus a little predictable. It’s always the same thing: crème brûlées panna cottas, brownies.

In one of your dish descriptions, you mention “moon-dried tomatoes”. What are these? (Laughs). That’s food poetry isn’t it? They’re halved tomatoes that are cured slightly on the hot pass. They’re not fresh, they’re not sundried, they’re moon-dried…

Where do you eat out?
Whenever I’m in Cape Town, I make my way to The Tasting Room, Reuben’s, Fork, and The Grill Room in Franschhoek.

What is the most annoying food trend of the last five years?
All trends are quite phenomenal in their own way, but deconstructive cuisine where the whole plate is deconstructed with dots and spots and bubbles and foams may be the most annoying. The flavours can be out of this world, but it leaves you hungry.

And most inspiring?
Deconstructive cuisine is also the most inspiring, when using elements of it combined with other styles of cooking.

Did you always want to be a chef?
I actually wanted to be a ballet dancer. My parents were against the idea, so when I was 18 I started studying classical ballet. I was spotted and invited to do six months’ live performance. Unfortunately, dancers have an expiry date. I also noticed that my ballet teacher had to come to school on a bicycle each day. It wasn’t the life I wanted for myself, so I discovered another love in cheffing.

Do you still dance?
 They call me the White Zulu. I’m a member of a gumboot dance group called Amabhubesi. We recently appeared in SA’s Got Talent, dressed up in skins, the works. I met the members of Amabhubesi when I was executive chef at Hotel Izulu in KZN. Before that I was involved in other Zulu dance groups and choirs at various hotel and game reserves where I’ve worked. I took over the management of Amabhubesi in 2007, and we’ve competed in various provincial and national Zulu dance competitions. Nine times out of ten we’ve walked away with first place.