By Diners Club
The Proposition
Finally my desire to get back to Foliage was met. The delay was not for a want of trying. The restaurants of Franschhoek seem to keep very parsimonious hours in winter and my last three attempts had met with “closed” or “closed for lunch” signs, even when the smoker machine on the side-walk was hot and lazily puffing wafts of aromatic fug into the blue. Continue reading “Review: Foliage”
The Proposition
The beauty of winter in the Cape is that you can walk into your favourite restaurants without worrying about reservations (though some exceptions apply). The curse is that they may well be closed*, or keeping erratic “off season” hours. It’s a lottery, or a project for organised minds who call ahead (and don’t make the mistake of simply believing Google’s opening hours on the search page… or even the restaurant’s website, for that matter).
So it was that I traversed to Franschhoek one sunny winter’s day to discover that not one but two of the places I was keen to eat at were closed. Franschhoek is an epicentre of Cape wine and food and this says something about the distance we still have to go. Imagine the Napa Valley closed for business on a clear winter’s day? I am not saying there is any lack of will from the operators, I just know there are not the feet to make it worth being open.