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Burn the meat, feed the people

That is the whole idea, translated straight out of isiZulu. A shisanyama is the butcher, the fire and the chill spot rolled into one — and Zaba’s runs all three, every day, in Cato Manor.

Fire: Wood coals
Board: Shared, always
Bar: Cold drinks

A man in a Zaba's Shisanyama shirt laughing behind the brick braai as smoke rises off the coals — The man behind the coals

Shisanyama, explained

Cato Manor, Durban

Shisanyama means “burn the meat”, and in townships across South Africa it means far more than a grill. You choose your meat at the counter, it goes straight onto the coals, and you eat it with your hands at a long table full of people you came with and people you have only just met.

The butcher, the fire and the chill spot — rolled into one.

At Zaba’s we keep it the way it is supposed to be. Real wood fire, meat cut generously, pap and chakalaka on the side, music on, and nobody rushing you out the door. Weekends are loud. That is the point.

The founder

Zama Douglas Nyathi

Opened Zaba’s in 2017

Mr Nyathi grew up in the uMkhumbane community, and he will tell you that success is worth taking slowly. The appetite for building something of his own started early: as a young boy he sold ice creams and sweets, covering his own lunch and helping to support the family.

The first business was a tavern, opened on the strength of a single crate of beer and grown until it carried a full range of drinks. That success is what led here — to a shisanyama in 2017, a place to relax, catch up with people, put the music on, and eat tender meat straight off the coals.

How it goes

Counter, board, table

01
Pick your cut
Chops, wors, steak and offal in the counter fridge. You choose, they weigh it.
02
It comes out on a board
Coils of wors, roast meat and thick slabs of pap, straight onto the wood.
03
Pull up a chair
Tables under the roof, something cold from the bar, and nobody rushing you out.