Sanctuary Mandela, ex-president’s home turned into boutique hotel

“He was not a fussy person,” said chef Xoliswa Ndoyiya, who served Mandela’s meals for two decades.

She now heads the kitchen of the hotel’s restaurant, where every dish is inspired by his tastes.

“He did not want to see an oily plate, he didn’t have a sweet tongue. Fruit he would eat all the time, throughout the day,” she recalled.

“He was more a father than a boss. He made you feel comfortable, like you were part of his family.”

Like Mandela, she’s ethnic Xhosa, giving her a shared food sensibility.

If she tried to impress Mandela’s high-profile guests with food that he didn’t fancy, “he would say ‘Why are you not feeding me well?’ I would feel guilty for trying to please the guests instead of my boss,” she said.

He liked to eat his chicken with his fingers, cleaning the meat to the bone.

“With him, you must be humble. He taught us that people will you know for who you are. I miss him, very, very much.”

‘Not a museum’

For as much as the building has been remodelled, the management wants it to feel like a home.

Images of Mandela on the walls show him playing peek-a-boo with a baby, dressed to the nines as a young lawyer, and standing with outstretched arms to read a newspaper.

Rooms bear the nicknames, Madiba and Tata, that South Africans fondly used for him.

“It is not supposed to be a museum,” Maritz said. “We wish to maintain a legacy, but it needs to be self-sustaining, it needs to stay alive.”

The goal of financial sustainability is a key difference from other sites that memorialise the struggle against apartheid.