Safari Snack Bowls

The gang’s gathered for a little R&R, refreshments, and mingling. You’re imagining a cocktail party? We’re referencing elephants, zebras, and giraffes at the ol’ watering hole, but the scenarios are actually pretty similar. Make the spot where friends meet around food and drink a wild one, with these meticulously hand-carved snack dishes.

Kenyan artisans craft each bowl from a solid block of jacaranda wood—either recovered from naturally fallen trees or cut to clear roads. Using techniques passed down for generations, they cut rough shapes, then refine details using chisels and other hand tools. Once the bowls and their animal adornments are carved, each undergoes a series of sandings with increasingly finer grit paper before getting dried in the sun. (Unless it’s the rainy season, then they’re dried in a small room heated by burning wood shavings and other offcuts leftover from the carving process.) Finally, every bowl is painted by hand.

All of this is done in a small workshop in Kiambu, just north of Nairobi National Park, where the Kenyan wildlife that inspired these designs roam free.