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Review: Jordan Restaurant with George Jardine

“Your soufflé will be ready in five minutes”, I am informed. My main course plate is half-eaten, and I am in the middle of conversation. The waiter is not having a good day. Earlier, my suggested wine pairing with the starter, the Newton Johnson Albarino, was not available by the glass (which makes no sense) but the waiter assured me that I could try a glass of Jordan Riesling as “they are one and the same thing”.

Waiters and the training of wait staff are some of the most difficult components of operating restaurants. Staff turn-over and a modern lack of interest in the job severely test managers – but at the same time what is often lacking is managerial presence to control, smooth things over and create an overall sense of consistency, and hospitality. “Eyes on the floor” is the mantra too many places do not live by. Continue reading “Review: Jordan Restaurant with George Jardine”

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Review: Gemelli, Bryanston

Confusion reigned on the floor and by the end of the evening the bathroom looked like an Indonesian airport’s. Gemelli was spinning on a Monday night, barely holding on while trying to cope with the hungry, boisterous patrons, some guests bearing helium balloons and descending on large party tables, other guests looking rather lost amongst the melee at their tables for two.

We were approached by a succession of waiters with no-one managing to take firm hold after a swarming start… on one occasion a replacement bottle of wine arrived and was placed, unopened, on the table, where it stood for ten minutes, waiters rushing by, before I managed to get the cork pulled. How I missed a Swiss army knife then. On another occasion, there was an auction of starters at our table – an unordered antipasti platter that arrived with our calamari. The waiter was convinced we had ordered it. After tasting the calamari, it was so good, we should probably have kept the antipasti plate. Continue reading “Review: Gemelli, Bryanston”

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Table Manners: The Joys of Not Needing Supper

By Darrel Bristow-Bovey.

I wouldn’t choose to travel overseas with me. It’s not that I’m a cheapskate – actually, no, it’s precisely that I’m a cheapskate. I have ruined more foreign meals than an old man with an accordion wandering from table to table in an Italian restaurant. I sit and scowl at the menu, I purse my lips and make mental conversions into rands, I snarl at wine waiters and start suggesting to my wife that we share the main course. I am well aware that these are not attractive qualities but I can’t help it and it’s too late for me to change.

We were on Sipan island in the Elafiti archipelago, just off the coast of Croatia. The night before we’d been in Dubrovnik and had eaten at a restaurant whose name I have expunged from my memory because when the bill arrived I think I experienced a small stroke. Continue reading “Table Manners: The Joys of Not Needing Supper”

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Story of a Plate: Beef Cheeks at The Local Grill

Credit: Steve Maresch

On the menu: Beef cheeks – ragù served on mashed potato*

*As last year’s winner, The Local Grill recently hosted the awards ceremony for the 2017 Steakhunter Championships (which saw Cape Town restaurant Rare Grill take the honours for both overall winner and Newcomer of the Year.) On that occasion we enjoyed a special version of their beef cheeks dish, not as currently described on the menu, but with the extra touches that owner Steve Maresch lets us in on below.

Both the starter, and the story that you told about it, were excellent at the awards ceremony. How did it come about?

Steve: We’ve been operating The Local Grill since 2002, and the whole idea of nose-to-tail – which in the restaurant world really translates into a no-waste philosophy – has always been very important to us. But back in the early days, suppliers found it difficult deliver cuts like beef cheeks, since it was more economically viable for them to sell the whole cow’s head. When we eventually found smaller suppliers who were able to source cheeks for us, we started experimenting with just putting them in the pressure cooker with a bit of star anise, and eventually some vine-ripened baby tomatoes, and just letting those ingredients speak for themselves. Continue reading “Story of a Plate: Beef Cheeks at The Local Grill”

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Plates and places for dining in style

In our July 2017 newsletter we explored the issue of fine dining:

There seem to be an abundance of dining “styles” these days, including some new hybrids, like “fast fine” and “fast casual”, and older movements getting modern attention, like “nose-to”tail” and “farm-to-plate”. But what about good old-fashioned “fine dining”?

The website Fine Dining Lovers recently posed the question of what fine dining is to a group of celebrated chefs across the world, and their varied answers point to the fact that there is certainly nothing “old-fashioned” about it – at least not in the sense that there is a strict formula for how to provide it. One chef summed it up as being about “making people feel good”, while another mentioned providing diners with the “best experience” in a way that doesn’t have to be “formal”, “pretentious”, or “elegant”. Chef Mauro Colagreco (chef-patron of the 2 Michelin-starred restaurant Mirazur on the French Riviera) had perhaps the most poetic answer: “For me it’s a big question. It’s a place where you work with memory, with art. I think it’s a place where you find emotions, luxury – but new luxury. Once, to have a garden was common, something everyday, but today to eat something from the garden is a luxury. Luxury has changed.” Continue reading “Plates and places for dining in style”

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Review: Pierneef à La Motte

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.

Continue reading “Review: Pierneef à La Motte”

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Table Manners: Love, Life, and Takeaways

By Darrel Bristow-Bovey.

“Can I get the manti as a takeaway?” I asked.

The waitress stared at me as though she hadn’t fully understood.

“A takeaway,” I said, miming someone wrapping a small parcel and then handing it to another person who nods and smiles and takes it from the first person and sniffs it appreciatively then tucks it under their arm and walks away with it. I am excellent at charades and I don’t know why more people don’t want me on their team. “I think I’m out of time so I’ll have to take it away with me.”

She stared at me some more, her eyes growing wider. This was strange: she seemed to understand basic English when I arrived. She looked around in panic and waved to another guy who came over and they consulted, talking in low, urgent Turkish, throwing me looks of alarm and befuddlement.

Continue reading “Table Manners: Love, Life, and Takeaways”

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Story of a Plate: Octopus at La Tête

On the menu: Octopus, fennel and sea spinach

The octopus was phenomenal. Would you mind telling us how the dish came together, with the fennel and sea spinach?

Chef Giles Edwards: As with most of the dishes, it’s really about the supplier. Our chicken hearts come from Angus at Spier – they’re amazing, so I think about how I can make them appealing to everyone else. I put a deep-fried potato bake on the plate, and it just works perfectly with the dish, and it becomes an attraction – it’s the same with the octopus. I always cook it the same way; it just comes down to what I pair it with and how I use it. The octopus comes from South Coast Fisheries, who source it from False Bay. It’s Atlantic octopus, and there are not many restaurateurs buying it. Continue reading “Story of a Plate: Octopus at La Tête”

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Amazon, Whole Foods, and the future of food

From our June 2017 newsletter:

Some of the biggest news on the international food scene last week was the announcement that Amazon would be acquiring the US-based grocery Whole Foods Market for a cool $13.7 billion. (Whole Foods calls itself “America’s Healthiest Grocery”, and as its name suggests, the focus is on organic, sustainable products.)

With Whole Food Markets currently only located in the US, Canada and the UK, it’s a deal which won’t have any immediate impact on our local food scene (no drone delivered organic kale quite yet!), but there is speculation that it could have far-reaching consequences for the global food industry.

Continue reading “Amazon, Whole Foods, and the future of food”

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Dining Etiquette and Jazz

If you stop and think about it, it’s interesting that we visit a top-end restaurant, hand over a couple of thousand Rand per head for the pleasure, and then profusely thank the waiter, the manager and the chef for the privilege when we leave.

This gratitude is only elevated the more rare the opportunity, like when we land a table at a place that really is difficult to get into. What this brings into focus is that we are the guests of the restaurant and they are the hosts, and we thank them as we would thank the hosts at a domestic dinner party. We only stop short of bringing them flowers.

Continue reading “Dining Etiquette and Jazz”