Australian_Gourmet_Traveller_2017

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

DETOURS

I N I TA LY

Daily walks of between five and

eight kilometres are the ideal foil

for the bounty of the southern-

Italian table on an 11-day hosted

small-group walking tour of Puglia

and Amalfi (above) by luxury travel

company Abercrombie & Kent. The

focus is on regional specialities,

farmhouse cooking classes and

country fare during seven days

on foot in Puglia and four days

on the Amalfi Coast. Tours with

a maximum of 14 guests depart

12 April and 23 September 2018.

abercrombiekent.com.au

Art of Africa

The latest development on Cape Town’s blossoming V&A Waterfront

is the continent’s first museum of modern African art.

At the heart of the new Zeitz Museum of

Contemporary Art Africa, opened last

month at Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred

Waterfront, is a spectacular atrium shaped

like a grain of wheat, carved from one of

42 concrete silos and lit like an “industrial

cathedral” by a glass roof.

Built in 1921 and lying empty for the

past 27 years, the city’s landmark grain

silo complex now houses 80 galleries of

contemporary art from Africa and its

diaspora, the first museum of its kind

on the continent. Spread over nine floors,

the development includes centres for film,

photography and art education. Much of

the collection is owned by former Puma

CEO and entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz.

The chief challenge of the $50 million

project, says British designer Thomas

Heatherwick, whose company Heatherwick

Studio managed the conversion, was to find

a way to carve space within the 10-storey

“tubular honeycomb” without “completely

destroying” the heritage-listed building.

Guests at The Silo Hotel, opened

earlier this year in the complex, have

had a bird’s-eye view of the museum’s

development. It’s one of 22 historic

landmarks in the 123-hectare V&A

Waterfront spanning entertainment

venues, and commercial and residential

development, flanked by a working

harbour and the city centre.

Among the launch exhibitions are

early-career retrospectives of work by

Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai

and Nandipha Mntambo from Swaziland.

Highlights include Isaac Julien’s nine-

screen projection Ten Thousand Waves

and Togolese artist El Loko’s vertiginous

installation of nine huge etched-glass

discs on the floor of the rooftop

sculpture garden.

Visitors can book a table at the rooftop

restaurant for fine views of Table Mountain

and then plunge into the underground

tunnels once used to transport grain between

silos. The tunnels house a recreation of

the found-object installation that won

Angolan photographer Edson Chagas

the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale

in 2013. zeitzmocaa.museum

The wheat-shaped

atrium of the

Zeitz Museum

of Contemporary

Art Africa recalls

the building’s

former life.

Boost the chances of

finding lost or stolen

gear – from luggage to

passports, cars to

cameras – with new

waterproof Tile Pro

Series trackers, with a

Bluetooth range of 61

metres. $50 each.

thetileapp.com

26 GOURMET TRAVELLER

PHOTOGRAPHY IWAN BAAN (ZEITZ MUSEUM), GETTY IMAGES (ITALY), SARAH ANDERSON (GELATO) & RODNEY MACUJA (PASTA)