Bill Clinton would visit Nelson Mandela's home and ask to eat the exact same meals as him, says Sanctuary Mandela hotel manager

• The manager of a luxury hotel that was Nelson Mandela's former home said Bill Clinton often visited.
• Dimitri Maritz, manager of Sanctuary Mandela, said Clinton would request the same meals as him.

Bill Clinton was a regular guest at Nelson Mandela's Houghton, Johannesburg home, according to the manager of Sanctuary Mandela, a new luxury hotel that was formerly the residence of South Africa's first president.

Dimitri Maritz, a manager at the sanctuary which doubles as a museum, told Insider that Clinton would request to eat the exact same meals as Mandela during his visits.

Maritz said Mandela lived at the 9-bedroom property between 1992 to 1998, which included most of his presidency that spanned 1994 to 1999. Mandela welcomed many high-profile guests during this time, according to the sanctuary's website, including Naomi Campbell, who Maritz said would "often bring him flowers," and Oprah Winfrey.

"One very notable guest would be Bill Clinton. He was a regular in the home," Maritz told Insider, adding that the hotel's current chef, Xoliswa Ndoyiya, who was Mandela's personal chef for 18 years, shared details about these visits.

"He actually visited quite often to a point where he would want to eat exactly what Madiba used to eat and he wouldn't want it all prettied up in a specific way," Maritz said. The manager also said Ndoyiya told him that when Clinton enjoyed meals prepared by her, Mandela would send the then-president to the kitchen to thank her personally.

In an essay for Vanity Fair in December 2013, four days after Mandela died as a result of a prolonged respiratory infection, Clinton touched on their friendship.

"In 1998, I made the first visit by an American president to South Africa. By then President Mandela and I had become friends. We had met during the Democratic convention in New York in 1992," wrote Clinton. He added that for several years after, he traveled to South Africa to check in on the Clinton Foundation's work and "spend time with my friend on his birthday."

Sanctuary Mandela opened its doors to guests in November. The property was previously bequeathed to Mandela's late son, Makgatho Mandela, whose children announced in March 2021 that the house was deteriorating and they voted between themselves to sell it, Times Live South Africa reported.

Rooms at the sanctuary range from $260 per night to nearly $1,000 for the Presidential Suite. Maritz said it was created in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and has artworks from its archives.

The sanctuary nods to Mandela by labeling each of its rooms with one of his many names and displaying his photographs and letters on the walls of each suite. The 36-seater restaurant is named "Insights," after a painting of him and Clinton. Maritz said that in the painting, they're "sitting together in a park having an insightful discussion."

Insights Restaurant uses foods that Mandela enjoyed, and Clinton would have likely tried, including oxtail stew, and samp and beans, Maritz said, to make fresh new dishes, such as oxtail ravioli and samp risotto.

On December 5, 2013, the day Mandela died, Clinton spoke to CBS News' Scott Pelley about his long-term bond with Mandela.

Recalling the early days of their friendship, he told Pelley: "I guess he thought I had potential to do a thing or two and he went out of his way just to be my friend. Talk to me about life. Raising kids. Dealing with disappointment. Managing anger. He's an astonishing human being."

Maritz said he hopes the sanctuary will now invite guests from all over the world who want to educate themselves on what Mandela was like.