Tasty, tastier, tastiest: New menus for City Lodge Hotels and Courtyard Hotels!

Black forest dessert

Salmon salad

Baked kingklip

Following the launch of the all new Eat-in offering at Town Lodges and Road Lodges earlier this year, group food and beverage manager, Chef Trevor Boyd, has turned his attention to revamping the menus at City Lodge Hotels and Courtyard Hotels. New menus feature a mix of guests’ favourite dishes and new ones, ensuring new and regular guests find more of what they are looking for at lunch and dinner.

Chef Trevor says: “We have done a lot of research into what guests are looking for and this has informed the new dishes on offer. The emphasis is on hearty meals at a good price, greater variety, and new dishes that have not been available before. We have explored new flavours and also added more vegetarian options to the menus, which are slightly different for lunch and dinner. We’ve also revamped our drinks menus to ensure guests find their preferred alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages to enjoy with their meal.”

Grilled lamb cutlets

Grilled rump

Roasted vegetable salad

Chef Trevor travels around the country to the group’s 59 hotels to train staff, supervise new ordering and stock control procedures, and ensure that kitchen teams are familiar with all aspects of the offering. This has been an emphasis of the group for a couple of years now, and has paid off significantly.

City Lodge Hotels signature #Cafe restaurant

City Lodge Hotels feature the signature #Café restaurant in each property. The emphasis is on hearty, wholesome and tasty dishes, ingredients and flavours to tantalise the taste buds at a good price. Guests can enjoy their meal in the #Café restaurant, or place their order and have their meal attractively presented on a tray for collection, to enjoy in the comfort of their hotel room.

A snapshot of new dishes on the City Lodge Hotels dinner menu:

• Salmon Salad: Smoked salmon trout served with baby leaves, caper-berries, red onion, creamed feta, avocado, marinated artichokes and croutons
  
• Plant-based Burger: BBQ plant-based patty, baby leaves, paprika hummus, gherkin, tomato, red onion, and house relish
  
• Rosemary Lamb Cutlets (300g) served with your choice of golden hot potato chips or fluffy maize meal. Sauces that can be added on for additional small charge include Madagascan Pepper, mushroom, chimichurri or chakalaka
  
• Baked Kingklip marinated in garlic, ginger and lemongrass served with golden hot potato chips and coriander salsa
  
• Chicken Dust: Six Gun spiced full spatchcock chicken, golden hot potato chips, dusted sweetcorn ribbons, chakalaka and beans
  
• Sour Cherry Black Forest: Black Forest pudding served with sour cherries

City Lodge Hotel Maputo restaurant

Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Courtyard Hotels are served in their elegant Club Lounge restaurant. The flagship Courtyard Hotel Waterfall City in Midrand has two restaurants for guests to enjoy, The Protea and The Highline. Their menus are unique to this hotel.

Some of the new dishes on the Courtyard Hotels dinner menu:

• Blackened Chicken Salad: Blackened chicken breast, oven roasted tomatoes and root vegetables and pecorino cheese dressed in a spicy herb vinaigrette
  
• Cauliflower Steak: Marinated grilled cauliflower steak, black bean and chickpea “meatballs”, tomato and cauliflower salsa, toasted pine nuts and sunflower seeds
  
• Grilled Sole: Delicately grilled sole with mashed potato and a lemon and caper berry sauce
  
• Chicken & Prawn Curry: Mild chicken and prawn curry served with poppadum, raita and sambals
  
• Lamb Shank: Slow braised lamb shank served with roasted root vegetables and roasted garlic mash
  
• Chocolate Fondant: Moist sticky chocolate fondant served with rocky road ice cream

For those flying in and out of Johannesburg, City Lodge Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport has significantly grown its food and beverage offering. The hotel’s newly expanded kitchen came into service in September 2022, allowing the team to extend the overall meal offering. Guests can now enjoy a buffet dinner in addition to the à la carte menu, right the way through to the early hours of the morning. Breakfast also starts much earlier for those guests needing to leave on a red-eye flight, and room service is available at any time. With a 24-hour food service now available, the hotel is better able to meet the needs of its travelling guests keeping irregular hours, all under the capable supervision of the hotel’s new executive chef, Devandra Narismulu. He is the second executive chef the group has employed after Courtyard Hotel Waterfall City’s Keegan Maistry came on board last year.

Devandra completed a Diploma in Professional Cookery at the ICESA Durban City Campus in 2006 and has built up a significant body of experience to date. He has worked at some of the country's top hotels and has catered for major international and local sports teams and celebrity guests. He has also competed in culinary competitions. His strengths include menu development, food and wine pairing, running multiple outlets at an establishment, fostering teamwork and training junior chefs.

He says of joining the CLHG family: “I have a passion for new challenges and am excited to take on this new role at City Lodge Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport. The new kitchen and buffet offering are just what this busy hotel needs and we are keen to wow guests with the enhanced food and beverage offering.”

Chief operating officer of City Lodge Hotel Group, Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo says: “Appealing food and beverages are an essential offering to today’s travellers, especially given the big jump in leisure guests, who may choose to enjoy all of their meals at our hotels. We are keen to keep ahead of trends and our growing culinary team is finding new ways to deliver mealtime excellence on a plate.”