Tue 22 Jan 2019
SA Top restaurant JAN in Nice receives one Michelin star accolade in France for the fourth year running!
Posted by Chris von Ulmenstein under Awards, Cape Town, Chris von Ulmenstein, Food news, France, Michelin, Restaurant news, WhaleTales Blog
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JAN Restaurant is our country’s best restaurant, despite it being based in Nice, not only in serving traditional South African dishes in fine din8ng style, but also in being the only South African Michelin-star restaurant. Yesterday JAN Restaurant received one Michelin star for the fourth year running! (more…)
A very recent restaurant opening is that of Café Paris in Green Point, a space I was watching being transformed when I drove past on Main Road. As my friend from Paris is visiting again, we decided to give it a try for a late breakfast/brunch yesterday. 
The Eat Out judges have a hard time in deciding on the ranking of our country’s top restaurants, especially when our top restaurants are increasingly performing on international restaurant list rankings! This year they seemed to markedly not have considered the top performance of two internationally crowned SA restaurants, The Test Kitchen, and even more so, Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient outside Pretoria. Both these restaurants have just made the prestigious 2019 Top 200 of the La Liste international Top 1000 restaurant List, rubbing shoulders with the world’s top chefs. 
Whilst I wrote SwitchBitch Book 2 in Apricale in Italy earlier this year, I saw JAN the Journal Volume 1 lying in the Apricus Locanda B & B. I was intrigued by its look and feel, and content, knowing Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen, Chef and owner of one star Michelin restaurant JAN in Nice, to be highly creative and meticulous in what he does. 
Earlier this year I published SwitchBitch Book 1, ‘My journey of transformation from Sour to Sweet’, documenting my physical transformation in losing 45 kg in changing my eating habits, and in expressing my love for dancing. 
It was at a dinner with Katie Friedman of Urban Lime that I heard about the opening of Victoire, a French Boulangerie, Pâtisserie, and Bistro in the newly redeveloped Speakers’ Corner building on Church Square in Cape Town. I attended the opening, as well as had breakfast at Victoire the following day. 
It has been announced that the new chef heading up the new Le Petit Manoir restaurant on the main road in Franschhoek is Chef Kevin Grobler, previously the Head Chef of one Michelin star JAN restaurant in Nice. He has been joined in the kitchen by his former JAN colleague Chef Scott Armstrong. 
In celebration of dancing for the past 18 months, I am launching my first book ‘SwitchBitch: My Journey of Transformation from Sour to Sweet!’ next Sunday 25 March at Cape Town’s best loved dance party at La Parada Constantia Nek, with music created by DJ René and his team. 
Chef Piet Huysentruyt, founder and owner of Likoké one star Michelin restaurant in France, has lifted the bar of the cuisine served in Franschhoek, with his two-week pop-up restaurant at his The Conservatory, which finishes off on 15 March. It impressed with the unusual and creative combination of ingredients, and the presentation of the dishes. 
At the end of February, for a period of two weeks, French one Michelin Star restaurant Likoké will make a pop-up appearance at The Conservatory in Franschhoek, with its owner and Chef Piet Huysentruyt. A number of writers was invited to taste bites of his creative cuisine last month. 
