For 23 years, Pamela Shippel-Granoth has cooked for the thousands of people who have found their way to Fynkos, tucked inside Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden.
Many returned year after year, ordering the dishes they remembered and, very often, asking Pamela for the recipes.
Now those favourites have been gathered together in Fynkos, the latest cookbook by Pamela Shippel-Granoth, created in collaboration with South African food writer and photographer Russel Wasserfall.
- Featuring more than 92 recipes, Fynkos is both a practical cookbook and a record of Pamela’s remarkable culinary life. It brings together recipes she has cooked, refined and trusted over fifty years, alongside the dishes that have become synonymous with the restaurant she has shaped at Kirstenbosch.
From the much-loved Spinach Shakshuka and Fynkos muffins to Butter Chicken, Pamela’s Pickled Fish, Bobotie and Fynkos’ Famous Apple Pie, the book brings some of the restaurant’s most celebrated recipes into the home kitchen. Its pages span breakfasts, salads, soups, bakes, treats and generous everyday cooking.
Pamela’s approach has always been straightforward: start with excellent ingredients, make things properly and never compromise on flavour. Behind that apparent simplicity lies an extraordinary command of technique and an instinctive understanding of how to extract the very best from an ingredient.
At Fynkos, almost everything is made from scratch. Breads, cakes and bakes come from the restaurant’s own bakery, while breakfasts, lunches and picnics are prepared on the premises under Pamela’s supervision. That philosophy sits at the heart of the book. These are not restaurant recipes designed to impress from a distance; they are practical recipes intended to be cooked, shared and returned to.
Creating Fynkos brought together two long careers in food. Pamela and Russel spent months in the kitchen and around the table, cooking, testing, remembering, adjusting, photographing and recording.
“Pamela is one of the most technically accomplished cooks I have worked with,” says Wasserfall. “Her gift is knowing how to extract the very best from an ingredient and then having the discipline not to get in its way.”
The book also preserves something of the place where these dishes have been served for more than two decades. Through Wasserfall’s photography, readers encounter rare views of Kirstenbosch and fleeting natural beauties that may never be seen in quite the same way again.
It captures the garden beyond the restaurant windows, the food served within them and the thousands of breakfasts, long lunches, family gatherings, picnics, conversations and celebrations shared around Fynkos tables.
After 23 years of feeding Cape Town and visitors from around the world, Pamela is finally sharing the recipes people have been asking her for—and, characteristically, she is sharing them generously.
How to order your copy of Fynkos?
The cookbook is also now available to purchase online. It is priced at R385, with national courier delivery available for R215. Please allow 7–10 working days for delivery. International courier can be arranged on request by contacting info@fynkos.co.za.
