A celebrity chef opens Botanica

I always felt that I missed an opportunity to experience Honey & Dough in Nairobi’s Westlands which recently shut its doors. It was the most ‘instagrammable’ restaurant in Nairobi, diners said.

So when I heard that a new restaurant, Botanica Kitchen and Gin Bar has been opened at the same site, I wanted to be among the first diners.

Despite the chaotic traffic jam to the restaurant, I beat my date to the venue located on the seventh floor of the blue building shaped like a capsule, One Africa.

The popular teardrop seating pods woven from Indonesian rattan have been retained. What is different is the deliberate greening of the space, lots of potted plants complemented by light fixtures.

There is a bar stocked with at least 30 gins. Being in a party of three, seated in a proper gin bar, we prompted the bartender, Simon, to impress us with his cocktail creations.

The lady among us was pampered with a raspberry ‘Saturn’ that matched her scarlet dress, my mate got a classic G&T tempered with Ritch and Leeds blue tonic while I was served a basil smash.

Luca Pintus, a chef who has cooked for the who’s who is the head chef at Botanica.

We started the dining experience with salmon tartare. For the mains, we had red snapper fillet and prawns plated in a way that mimics either a bamboo stem or a lobster exoskeleton.

The snapper was a win as was the roasted double-cut pork chops accompanied by Moroccan eggplant puree, dried fruit and cumin flavoured pork jus.

There was also barbecue pork ribs doused in Jamaican jerk sauce with mentions of creamy black beans, corn succotash, and buttered spinach, salmon steak marinated in pineapple and apple cider, which you must try.

Chef Luca has cooked in five-star hotels in Berlin, Milan, Paris, Lugano and Saint Moritz in Switzerland. The shy, youthful-looking, tattooed chef reminisced on his culinary career that began in his hometown in Genova, Italy, about 25 years ago.

“I spent two years crafting this trade with French Michelin-star chefs at the Alain Ducasse Group alongside Alain Senderens, {one of the most adventurous of the founding fathers of nouvelle cuisine}, at Lucas Carton and MOF Chef Christophe Raoux,” he says.

He has cooked at sea, working for the best luxury cruise lines as an executive sous chef.

He was once a private chef on mega yachts where he had the enviable opportunity to cook for celebrities such as Danielle Steel, the architect Norman Foster, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and countless Hollywood stars.

He concluded his whirlwind three-year-long exploration at sea as the head chef on Flavio Briatore’s mega-yacht.

He made his Kenyan debut where he set up the kitchens at the billionaire’s resorts in Malindi, The Lion in the Sun and Billionaire Resort. While at it, he realised even after setting up his operation back in his hometown, the Kenyan bug simply would not go away.

He joined Tribe and Trademark as a corporate chef, before going to The Food Library by Jit as a group executive chef in 2021.

“Then I opened Botanica as well as Bambino, a Latin Italian Kitchen also located in Westlands,” he says.

At Botanica, he serves a blend of flavours from all cultures in the world. Oh! If you are planning to visit, there is a dress code.