A brief look at some restaurants in South Africa by Bruce Palling

The glorious vista from Babel in Stellenbosch

Until last year, South Africa had remained unexplored by me, save the odd transit through Johannesburg when I had the misfortune to work as a foreign correspondent in the mid-Seventies in what was then Southern Rhodesia (“Surrey with a lunatic fringe on top”). The wine and food there was unexceptional – in fact the red table wine was more useful for descaling dirty silver than actually drinking. There was plenty of decent beef and lamb and I developed a grudging respect for the biltong from the friendly neighbour to the south. For wine, I used to import bottles of Latour, Lafite and Cos but ran foul of Sotheby’s Wine Department as after some time they concluded that I was actually sanctions busting by bidding at their London auctions from a clapped out old teleprinter in Salisbury. A friend came out with a couple of bottles of Krug 59 that she had raided from a cellar in Oxfordshire, so that was probably the best thing I drank the entire time I was there before being thrown out for trying to help make a tv documentary that the white regime objected to.

When Eat Out magazine asked if I would like to come out for a fortnight as an international judge of the restaurant awards, I was happy to oblige as I was curious to try the food. Occasionally, I had interesting bottles of Red South African wine (My favourite was Faithful Hound!) despite the rather snooty comments of Michael Broadbent to the effect that perhaps it was because of the rural outlook of South Africans but he didn’t think there was any demand for fine wine there. Admittedly that was in the Seventies, and things have moved on since then.

I was curious as to what would be served, given that South Africa as a country was really created because of food. The early Dutch settlers only came there in the first place because of the Spice Trade in the East Indies and the need to stock up on fresh produce and water for the journey there and back again. The Company Garden was a brilliant heritage for any country – it would be interesting to see what proportion of the early vegetables grown in the 1650s are still popular today.

I was obviously in the hands of the local organisers as to which places I should visit, though I discreetly checked around with a couple of friends, who mentioned many of the ones on the list I was given. The idea was that I would be booked into these places anonymously and simply pay in cash so as to not reveal my identity.

It really is irrelevant whether or not a restaurant knows your identity anyway, as you can always tell if you are being singled out for special treatment. Besides, several of the places, which addressed me by my real name on arrival, served unpalatable food.

One question in the brains, but not the lips, of many people I met was “How can you have any idea of our culinary standards when this is your first ever visit here?”

Of course, I understand the argument, but I believe it is looking at it from the wrong perspective. Instead, it would be better to think of me as a curious food and wine obsessed person fascinated to try a couple of dozen of the leading restaurants with an open mind and more importantly, no particular axe to grind, let alone wield. That is not to say I am not ignorant and ill-informed, just that it might be interesting to read what an outsider thinks.

One word of caution I would offer is for chefs to try and stop trying to do too much and simplify their approach. It was quite common to have up to a dozen different discrete ingredients on a single plate, which leads to culinary confusion. And those endless waiters' descriptions of dishes both before and during the meal should be jettisoned in the interests of the sanity of diners. There is nothing more dispiriting and tiresome than to have to listen to this culinary minutiae being rattled off while the food is slowly coagulating on your plate.

I suspect that owning a drop dead gorgeous vineyard with Biblical views and attached restaurant, is the South African equivalent of a bling-obsessed Oligarch owning a monstrous motor yacht. Both must costs tens of millions to construct and rarely if ever, pay their way. However, in the case of the restaurants, they can offer extraordinary meals at relatively bargain prices for anyone paying in a Northern Hemisphere currency.

The local wines too are on an upward path, though more steps will be needed to produce fewer alchoholic behemoths and more with finesse and balance. All in all, it is a vibrant scene that just needs to lose its current obsession at the highest levels with lengthy tasting menus with wine pairing by the glass for each and every dish. Just let the produce do the speaking.

One thing I did find disturbing was the heavy imbalance of European diners over Black guests at all of the places I visited. There were usually more Black staff than Black customers at every place I went to. The only exception to this was DW-Eleven-13 in Johburg. Perhaps there are many other places like this there but as I only went here, I hope I am speaking from ignorance. I adored the multi-racial buzz of the place - Asians, Africans, Europeans, all talking loudly and loving the place, as I did too. I just hope that in the next couple of decades, it will no longer be an issue worth mentioning.

Here is a breakdown of the places I ate at – some of which were initially not on the list I was given, but I thought they deserved inclusion.

Bistro Bizerca

(www.bizerca.com)

Cape Town

This was not on the original list, but joined it after a number of the existing restaurants I tried were so awful they simply couldn’t remain. I was impressed with this, my first ever meal in South Africa. Although it was in a soulless shopping mall, it had a jolly relaxed atmosphere with Sixties style furnishings and décor. I understand that it has since moved to a new location.

The first dish was half a dozen oysters, which were festooned with too many additives and herbs, which detracted from their taste.

One colleague had a very well cooked slab of fish piled too high on the plate, which was distracting.

Someone else had a salad dish with pieces of pancetta and croutons, which was excellent.

Then I had a rare lamb dish, which was perfect though again the actual plating was deficient as it was merely again lumped in the centre of the plate.

Then there was a tuna tartare dish with avocado, herbs on top – again this was vertically challenged but the taste was perfectly good.

The tarte tartin was first rate. All in all, this was one of the most enjoyable meals I had as it was simple and straightforward with decent ingredients that weren’t too mucked about. This was the sort of place I would happily go to regularly in any city as a local bistro.

After lunch, I managed to discover a couple of decent secondhand bookshops near the Taj, where I was staying. I bought a book of game recipes, which had an inscription in it from Piet Koornhoff, that tragi-comic Afrikaans Cabinet minister who abandoned his wife and lived with a mixed race woman and sired five children.

The centre of Cape Town had a slightly seedy, abandoned feel to it – I suspect it is similar to what happened in Miami, where the affluent people moved out to the suburbs where they could indulge themselves with shopping malls and golf courses.

Roundhouse

http://theroundhouserestaurant.com

Camps Bay

This place was the first grand restaurant I ate at in South Africa and depressed me quite a bit as it had no originality about it. The service was also incredibly demonstrative so I felt like shrinking into a shell and refusing to peep out in case the staff were still there. It was obviously designed to impress me as even the menu came with “Good Evening and welcome Bruce” printed in bold letters at the top. The only amusing incident was when I overheard a Black guest apologize for being late as he couldn’t bring his Ferrari because it would have scraped over the sleeping policemen on the entrance road. The veracity of this was probably nil but it was a very good excuse.

The Round House had a lovely setting but was I was not impressed with the chef ripping off Noma’s Rene Redzepi’s earth dish, with zero acknowledgment. Here it was called Organic Vegetable Patch - raw and pickled with mushroom soil and herb emulsion. However I stupidly didn’t take a picture of it.

Slow-cooked Beef Tongue with celeriac puree, whole-grain mustard and nasturtium– dominated by all these ingredients.

Buchu Roasted Organic Carrots with young coriander seeds, Eugenia berries, carrot flowers, carrot juice and rose petals. Afraid it was overcooked and uneventful.

Fallow Deer – this was OK and cooked with a high degree of technical skill but it was tasteless – perhaps it hadn’t been hung long enough.

Chalmar Rob Eye with salt baked onions, leeks, leek flowers, baby onions and lemon thyme oil. Again, there was no memorable taste here.

In conclusion, it all seemed like a proficient display of cooking skills without being integrated on the plate.

Babel Restaurant

Stellenbosch

http://babylonstoren.com/food/

Didn’t actually go there to judge it but the meal was so brilliant that thought we had to include it. It was less than an hours drive from Cape Town and fully lived up to the notion of being biblically beautiful.

Loved the setting and the all-white interior with an airy sense caused by the glass walls of the dairy.

Ordered a bottle of Zorgviliet 06 Cabernet without realising that it was stupendously alcoholic (more than 15%) so could only finish a third of the bottle. Think wine lists should always list the alcoholic strength of the wines they are serving as there is no point ordering any bottle of wine for one person if the level is more than 14.5%.

An excellent selection of butter, salsa verde and a conserve were served on a small piece of olive wood.

I ordered the vegetable and flower selection from the garden, which was superb – a sweet olive based sauce accompanied it but was not too overbearing.

Then had the most expensive steak on the menu, which had a selection of mushrooms covering it. My only complaint was that it did not appear to have been hung long enough – a common complaint, so it was quite tough though cooked properly rare.

The accompanying side orders were all well presented especially the chips, which were the best I had in South Africa.

I then visited the charcuterie store, which I adored.

Restaurant Rust en Vrede

www.rustenvrede.com/restaurant

Stellenbosch

With the shape of the arched windows, felt like an oversized bistro but the tables were well decorated and appreciated the exclusive use of Riedel glassware on the table. Nothing special about the cutlery though.

This menu could have been at any one star Michelin from Boston to Bordeaux – virtually zero seasonality – and impossible to work out which country you were in except for the Kingklip and Kabeljou. I can see why the chef only has two tasting options available but not everyone enjoys having to endure a two option dining experience unless the food is of absolutely the highest calibre. They were kind enough to offer us any cross over dishes because they were not that busy.

Pan seared Kingklip, celeriac, shitake, bone marrow dressing

The food was perfectly presented except the two main course looked quite similar with dashes of small items around the plate but in fact the ingredients were quite different. The stand out dish for presentation was the potato and garlic soup, which was brilliantly presented and the blood orange soufflé was well done too.

It was a mixed bag – the Pink Fir Potato and wild garlic soup, smoked haddock, quail eggs soup was exquisite. The quail’s eggs were perfectly soft and the smoked haddock not too overpowering.

Scallops, parnsnip, pig tail, apple, pecan, Ras el Hanout.

There was some unpleasantly crunchy item with the scallops, which were in no way exceptional.

Roasted Quail, butternut, quince, toasted seeds, leg met dumpling. The quail was well-cooked but the accompanying leg meat dumpling completely tasteless.

Fillet of veal, sweetbreads, oxtail ballotine, smoked potato, pickled morels, baby leeks. The veal was perfectly cooked but underseasoned and not intense enough while the sweetbreads were tiny little things smaller than a snail and slightly overcooked. The oxtail ballotines were pleasantly crumbly and well executed.

Crown roasted duck, red cabbage puree, duck sausage, baby turnips, pine nut. Afraid the duck was tasteless and reminiscent of something from a Cantonese restaurant.

Blood orange soufflé, yoghurt and lemon verbena sorbet, coconut tuile. The Souffle was quite good but not strong enough to have a wow factor. Never tasted the pannacotta but was told it was rather claggy.

I suppose I am being over critical here as a six course tasting menu for R585 would be a bargain anywhere else but by the time you had a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses of Champagne, the bill was close enough to R2,000 for two.

The sommelier was well-informed but the wine he steered us towards – a Rust en Vrede 2001 Cabernet failed to develop over the night and still had a rather acidic end even after decanting and being swirled around for a couple of hours.

Considerate service by both staff members but the real issue were the unending gaps between courses – frequently up to 15 minutes despite there being perhaps 10 other people there. One nice touch – when my wife discovered she had left her reading glasses behind, the maitre’d brought over a selection of them on a platter with varying optical strengths! I should add that the food/produce background notes provided by chef John Shuttleworth were exceptionally useful and detailed.

The Planet Restaurant

Mount Nelson Hotel

www.mountnelson.co.za/web/ocap/planet_restaurant.jsp

Cape Town

Why was I sent here? I thought that the Nobu meal was going to be hard to beat in the inedibility stakes, but the Planet deserves a Gold. The composition of the menu wasn’t the problem as it looks inviting and interesting – it was just the poor execution that ruined the meal. Things got off to a tedious start as all of the staff greeted me by name with big grins, even though I was not actually staying here at the time of my visit.

It all looked plausible except the crocodile was sliced so thin it was impossible to even identify it as flesh. All I could taste was the smoke.

The most interesting dish appearancewise was the green risotto with sweetbreads and oysters but I remain to be convinced that sweetbreads go with oysters. The oyster taste was drowned by the pea pureé (other diners didn’t even realise that they had eaten oysters).

The Springbok was tasteless and the smudge of carrot pureé hardly deserves the description of being a vegetable and the accompanying sauce was thick and sweet.

The swordfish was served in cubes and the prawns in the dish had that soggy texture that comes from being unfrozen too quickly.

The pudding was edible but uneventful. This was hotel food circa 1970….

The cost of R330 for a five course meal would appear to be good value but bad food is always too expensive regardless of the price.

The sommelier tried to bully the table into having the matched wines and was shocked when I asked to see the wine list to choose something ourselves. Had an excellent bottle of Steenburg Sauvignon Blanc 11 and very good Cluver Pinot 09 but no thanks to the sommelier.

Everyone at the table was aghast at the pushiness of the maitre’d who knew more about me that I do myself. He had decided we were all going to have the set menu with the paired wines regardless of what we thought. He bored the entire table for nearly 10 minutes with a lecture about the entire menu and wines. He also hovered around the table to try and overhear whatever we said. When one of the party wanted to go off piste with two dishes he insisted on bringing more plates so we could all try them as they were apparently specialities of the chef. He then repeated his lectures about the food every time he brought another dish. It was a real effort not to walk out such was the over enthusiasm and bumptitiousness of the Maitre’d.

The actual room was a bit last hours of the Titanic without the panic. Enormous cavernous space with a sprinkling of other guests. Liked the appearance of the room though and the hotel in general – like a faded filmstar.

Hartford House Restaurant

http://www.hartford.co.za

Kwazulu-Natal

Perhaps the original table setting at Hartford House

I can’t say that I was looking forward to this journey as it was more than a thousand miles round trip for what looked like a bit of a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. The drive up from Natal was also the worst I had experienced on the entire trip – heavy rain, crashed vehicles, traffic jams…A couple of hours later I arrived, completely unknown except by my grandfather’s name (Henry Douglas).

From the verbal briefing and printed material, I had imagined that this was a charming backwatery sort of place that was suffering from being there for too long. Big Mistake. I would put Hartford House in the same league as Faviken in Sweden and the Royal Mail in Australia as one of the very best isolated/remote places to eat anywhere on the planet.

A revelation! Each dish (with the possible exception of the pudding which was far too sweet for my taste) was outstanding and memorable. (Apologies for the poor focus on many of these shots as I was frozen on arrival and had the camera on the wrong setting most of the time.)

The Ostrich Tartar with Borage Flowers and Susu had obviously been hung for some time as it was intense and full-flavoured.

Soup before pouring

After the flood...

Hearty Lentil English Tongue Soup with Tonka Broad bean Puree – again, gutsy and delicious.

Poached Quail with “Croft” Chicken Liver Parfait, “Kamberg” Ham, Sticky Potatoes, Violet Espuma and Garlic Chips. The best tasting quail I came across on the entire trip.

Springbok with garden fresh Pea Puree, truffle oil Mayo and fresh Dill. At last I saw the point of Springbok.

Beetroot Powder topped Lokum with ash coated pineapple sage Panna Cotta, Rose Geranium ice cream and lavender sherbet. Too complex and sweet for my jaded taste.

And next morning, a perfect runny omelette for breakfast. I felt bereft that my entire time at Hartford was less than 12 hours.

The dining room and in fact the entire place is a romantic colonial’s dream. I stayed in Suite Number 1, with its solid marble bath, reputedly imported from Malaya at the end of the Eighteenth Century. The price for this suite would not get you a clapped out motel room on the fringes of suburban London. If I ever have the resources, I would hire a private jet and come out here with a dozen friends for a long weekend.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT/CRITICISE WHATEVER, AS IT ALL HELPS PROSPECTIVE DINERS

BEING CONTINUED – BEAR WITH ME AS MORE RESTAURANTS ARE BEING ADDED EVERY FEW HOURS/DAYS

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