Durban's most original dish: a white bread loaf, hallowed out and filled with curry. Invented as take-away packaging in the 1940s. Eaten without cutlery, standing at a counter.
About Bunny Chow
Durban's most original dish and South Africa's greatest street food — a half or quarter loaf of white bread with the dough scooped out and replaced with a lamb, bean or chicken curry; the scooped bread is used to mop the curry; invented by Indian immigrants in Durban in the 1940s; a UNESCO-adjacent treasure of South African Indian cuisine; eaten without cutlery at the counter of Durban's Grey Street curry houses.
A half or quarter loaf of white bread with the dough scooped out and replaced with lamb, bean or chicken curry. The scooped bread (the 'virgin') is used to mop the curry. Invented by Indian immigrants in Durban in the 1940s as a way to carry take-away curry without a container. Eaten without cutlery at the counter of Durban's Grey Street curry houses.
“A half or quarter loaf of white bread with the dough scooped out and replaced with lamb, bean or chicken curry.”
The white loaf must be fresh and slightly crusty. Stale bread absorbs the curry and collapses before you finish eating.
What to Expect
The bunny chow arrives as a half loaf, the curry filling steaming inside the bread. You eat with your right hand, using the scooped bread to manage the curry and the loaf walls to scoop.
Why Try It
Bunny chow is South African Indian cuisine's most inventive creation — a packaging solution that became a dish of genuine cultural significance.
Insider Tips
- Eat it at a Grey Street curry house in Durban — the atmosphere is inseparable from the dish.
- Bean curry bunny chow is the vegetarian original and often the most flavourful version.
- The bread must be fresh — a stale loaf collapses under the curry's moisture.
