The thing to remember, if you’re dining at Mkutano House, is that the elephants are the most important guests. You might be sitting at your own assigned table, eating the food you ordered for yourself, but it’s their restaurant — even if they aren’t technically allowed inside.
“It definitely comes with some different operating parameters,” Pat McTigue, executive director of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, told SFGATE.
Mkutano House is the new restaurant inside the Safari Park in Escondido, California, a much larger and more remote counterpart to the San Diego Zoo. It opened with the new Elephant Valley preserve, which houses the park’s nine African elephants. Eight years in the making, it’s the newest and arguably the most elaborate elephant sanctuary in all of California — and with the restaurant’s location in the middle of the preserve, it certainly offers one of the wildest dining experiences in the state. As you sip on your cocktail made with African spirits and dine on African-inspired cuisine, those elephants will nearly come right up to your table, with only a small but effective lagoon separating the enormous pachyderms from the diners.
“The wildlife is at the heart of everything we do,” McTigue added. “… We want to make sure that we keep our herd at the forefront of our thoughts.”…