- Written by: Neve Qaraday
Scrooby’s journey is not a straight line but a spiral, circling back to the heat and smoke of his youth. Raised on his grandmother’s West Coast farm, he grew up with fire as ritual, family braais, smoke curling into the sky, food shared around a table where laughter lingered as long as the embers.
Welcome to my island
For 17 years, Shaun worked as a safari guide, telling stories of animals and landscapes to wide-eyed travellers. But when lockdown came, he returned home, transformed an old stable on the Remhoogte Wine Estate, and by December 2023, he had elevated it by adding the social dining concept on the dam and lit a fire that has not gone out since.
“I don’t want people to feel like they’ve booked a table at some fancy place. I want them to feel like they’ve been invited in. This is my island.” Shaun Scrooby
The approach to VUUR is disarmingly simple. An unassuming stable, sand-washed walls, a roof that has known both sun and storm. Were it not for the low billows of smoke rising in the distance and the warmth that radiates as you step closer, you might mistake it for just another farm building.
Inside, however, it is another world, wooden beams, raw textures, the faint crackle of oak and wattle feeding the fire. Tables are set not with fuss or formality but with intention, clean lines, simple glassware, and a pared-back elegance. It feels less like entering a restaurant and more like being welcomed into someone’s home.
“That’s the point. This is my island, and I want people to feel at home here.” Sean Scrooby
Theatre by the Fire
At VUUR, dining is never passive. Guests don’t just eat here, they experience it.
“I think people are constantly looking more for unique experiences. When you can not only see and smell the food as it’s cooked in front of you, but also get up close, chat with the chef while he’s cooking, or simply observe until the plate is brought over, it must be like theatre. The more you know about why the dish was made, where it comes from and how it is made, the more you relate with what you are eating. We should not only eat with our senses but with understanding. It’s then that you remember the food, because you remember the story behind it.” Shaun explains.
And so, fire becomes the stage, Shaun the narrator, and each course another act in a play that unfolds slowly, deliberately, and with flair. Homegrown, Laid-back, and Absolutely On Fire. Forget stiff service or white-tablecloth etiquette. At Vuur, the vibe is as unpolished and genuine as the chef’s grin when he drops a plate at your table. It’s fun, laid-back, down-to-earth, almost like stumbling into a backyard braai where the host happens to wield the instincts of a culinary poet. Wood, smoke, and flame are the guiding principles, but comfort, warmth, and generosity are the spirit.
And then there’s the menu, short, sharp, and confident. Like a handwritten playlist of greatest hits, each dish demands its moment.
Bread, Bone, and Beginnings
The curtain rises with the bone marrow sourdough roll. A golden loaf split open to reveal the softness of the bread, glossed with black garlic butter, crowned with gooseberry jam, and anchored by roasted marrow.
“Bread is the first handshake,” Shaun says. “It’s the way we welcome people in. But I wanted ours to be a little cheeky, a little unexpected.” It is at once primal and playful, the richness of marrow, the perfume of the black garlic, the sweet-tart lift of gooseberry, all pulled together by smoke. The kind of dish that makes you pause and smile, because you can feel both its confidence and its warmth.
The crackle of perfection. Then comes the line-caught yellowtail fish, and suddenly the theatre Shaun spoke of is no longer a metaphor but reality.
The skin is a revelation, blistered over the flames until it snaps like glass, so crisp that the sound of the fork breaking through is almost louder than the murmur of conversation. Beneath it, the flesh is tender and glistening, a study in contrasts, the crunch of char, the soft surrender of perfectly cooked fish. A touch of smoke lingers, eucalyptus and wattle weaving through like a signature. Around it, cabbage and salad are not afterthoughts but actors in their own right, charred leaves bringing bitterness, fresh greens providing lift, the whole plate a reminder that the best dishes are those that seem effortless while being anything but. It is the kind of dish that ruins you for lesser fish forever.
Aged beef tartare arrives with grilled leek toast and spring onions, the smoky edges cutting through the richness of the raw beef. The daily prime steak cut, often a dry-aged rib, carries with it the swagger of tradition, yet Shaun’s fire gives it new depth. Beef-fat potatoes crunch at the edges, carrots and beans soak up the woodsmoke, and pickled red onion slices add brightness.
“Sometimes people just want a proper steak and chips,” Shaun grins. “And if I’m cooking it, it’s going to be the best damn steak I can put on that plate.”
A Guide Turned Storyteller
Shaun is not a classically trained chef. He is not the product of Michelin culinary schools. He is, instead, a guide, one who now leads guests not through savannas but through flavours.
“At first, I thought being a guide and being a chef were completely different. “But actually, they’re the same. It’s about paying attention. On a bird or a track. Here, it’s a carrot or a piece of marrow. The joy is the same.”
His years in the bush gave him the art of storytelling and the patience of observation. At VUUR, those skills are transposed onto food. The dining room becomes his savanna, the fire his lion’s roar, the dishes his narrative.
More Than a Meal
By the end of an afternoon at VUUR, it becomes clear that this experience will linger on in every guest's memories. It is an island of sorts, not in geography, but in spirit. An island where fire is the tide, smoke the breeze, and hospitality the sand beneath your feet.
Shaun has created more than a dining room; he has made a refuge. A place where guests feel seen, fed, and woven into a story larger than themselves. Where every course is not just about taste, but about connection, to fire, to memory, to each other.
As the afternoon winds down, embers glow low against the beams and glimpses of wildebeest, springbok, and zebras grazing in the nearby pasture. Guests linger, reluctant to leave, glasses half-empty but spirits full. Shaun looks at the fire, then back at his guests. “Not every day a man can say, welcome to my island,” he says with a smile. Indeed.