Pier Nirandara, from Bangkok, is an underwater photographer, film producer, travel writer and author. She began her career as a novelist, publishing three no 1 bestsellers, before being drawn to photography – particularly underwater work – where she has since earned international recognition.
A multi-award winner for both writing and photography, Pier is also a lifelong foodie, perhaps influenced by the fact that her mother has run a high-end Japanese restaurant in Bangkok for decades. She splits her time between Bangkok, Los Angeles and Cape Town, and here shares her favourite dining experience in the world: coastal foraging in South Africa.
Food in Cape Town is exceptional because of its ingredients. A Mediterranean climate, an expansive coastline, and the high cost of importing food mean that most ingredients are grown or gathered locally. In practice, this translates to farm-to-table dining as a default – not a trend, but a necessity.
That emphasis on ingredients is what makes one of my favourite Cape Town experiences so special. Coastal foraging with Roushanna Gray and her company, Veld and Sea – “veld” meaning land – is something I would recommend to almost anyone, whether you’re travelling with family or on your own. Her team runs coastal and freediving foraging workshops, all carefully designed around seasonal rhythms.
You head out along the coast with Roushanna, who teaches you to read what she calls an edible landscape. Together, you gather kelp and seaweed, alikreukel – a type of sea snail – and mussels. There are hundreds of species of seaweed in this area, and only one is inedible. Everything you collect is then taken back to her glasshouse, where her team prepares the meal. You eat surrounded by the largest indigenous plant nursery in the Western Cape.
Much of Roushanna’s work is shaped by her mixed cultural and ancestral heritage, her South African upbringing, and the knowledge that comes from years of living alongside this coastline. The practice is rooted in deep ecological understanding, developed through a lived relationship with land and sea.
It’s a spectacular way to experience Cape Town, particularly the region around Cape Point, the southwestern-most point of Africa. Coastal foraging exists elsewhere in the world, but nothing quite compares. I’ve gone foraging with Roushanna countless times, and her depth of knowledge never ceases to amaze me.
You eat with the seasons, learn your environment and quite literally taste the landscape. It gives you an entirely new appreciation for the coastline.
The freediving excursions are essentially snorkelling trips with short dives to retrieve produce. Permits are arranged in advance, and sustainability underpins everything she teaches. You’re given a small pair of scissors and a mesh bag and shown how to harvest only a third of any plant to encourage regrowth. You also learn to collect certain invasive species, helping to rebalance the ecosystem.
After foraging, you’re shown how to cook what you’ve gathered. One of my favourite dishes is kelp pasta, where kelp fronds are sliced into noodle-like strands. There are rich seaweed broths, and for dessert, a hollowed kelp bulb filled with seasonal stone fruit, honey or syrup, then roasted.
The mussel pot with kelp is also mindblowing – kelp has a natural umami quality, essentially a form of natural MSG. Roushanna also taught me that certain seaweeds contain carrageenan, a natural thickening agent used in soups and sauces.
The workshops usually take place along the coastline. Some involve diving, others don’t, depending on the season. I love being in the water. The way sunlight filters through the kelp forest feels mystical
Roushanna calls it an elemental coastline – a phrase that echoes the area’s old moniker, the Cape of Storms. I always feel a mythic connection to land and sea when I’m there. And because the glasshouse sits near Cape Point National Park, close to the Cape of Good Hope, it truly feels like standing at the edge of the world.
Aesthetically, it’s just ridiculously beautiful.
veldandsea.com; @veldandsea; piernirandara.com; @piersgreatperhaps
Peter Howarth has been the style director of British GQ and the editor of Arena, British Esquire and Man About Town. He is the co-founder and CEO of London creative agency SHOW and managing director of Secret Trips.
