Chef Chantel Dartnall of Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient outside Pretoria Facebooked her good news of making the 2020 Top 200 in the La Liste ranking of the 1000 top-mentioned restaurants in the world. Her restaurant was ranked around number 110 on this list, the joint highest ranked South African restaurant with The Yest Kitchen with a score of 94%. Four top restaurants, two of them from Tokyo, shared the number one ranking this year. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: New York
The Eat and Meat of a Michelin Restaurant Inspector! A star job, eating out 275 times a year?
The local JHP Gourmet Guide once again tried to link itself to the Michelin star rating of our local restaurants, by awarding top local restaurants one, two, and three plate accolades, as if they are equivalent to Michelin one, two, and three stars. I have been critical of this exaggerated and dishonest link by Jenny Handley and her Gourmet Guide Awards, especially as I know how the restaurant visits are done by her. (See the Blogpost link at the end of this article). A recent Forbes article ‘The Secret Life of an Anonymous Michelin Restaurant Inspector’ therefore attracted my attention, and I summarise it below, so that I could double check my view on this. Continue reading →
Returning home to Cape Town after three months on the (European and South American) road as a Solo traveler !
My post below comes from Facebook, a post I wrote in the last few days of my journey through eight countries, walking and dancing 1,2 million steps and just under 1000 km in three months. It was a tongue in cheek story about my journey, motivated in writing my third SwitchBitch Book, but also to share with my Blog readers the World’s 50 Best Restaurants I ate at in Lima, Buenos Aires, Santiago in Chile, Rio de Janeiro, and a Michelin star restaurant in Lisbon, with other great and not so great restaurants, and the interesting Mendoza wine region in Argentina, synonymous with Malbec and the largest in the country. I will be posting stories as soon as I have settled in again and got over the jet lag. Continue reading →
Cuban Salsa grew from a fusion of other dance styles, no one is too old to dance it!
I decided to spend close to a month in Cuba, to learn to dance the Salsa in the country from which elements of it originated. It was an interesting experience, learning more about Cuban music, that Salsa is a ‘commercial’ overarching name for a dance incorporating steps from a number of other dance styles, and that I had to come to the conclusion that I do not like most Cuban Salsa music. I was told that Salsa has no age limit, one never being too old to dance, it even being used remedially with older persons.
Can a negative review close a restaurant down?
I saw an article by Post & Courier recently, randomly as I do not follow this publication, and was attracted to its topic, being the impact of restaurant reviews and their power to close a restaurant down. Being our country’s harshest restaurant reviewer, this got me thinking about why the top chefs in our country, including Giorgio Nava, Bertus Basson, Peter Tempelhoff, Liam Tomlin, and Scott Kirton & Co are so sensitive to constructive criticism by banning (or attempting to) me from their restaurants, yet new (to our country) chef Wunderkind Rikku O’Donnchü of Gåte Restaurant welcomes it so! Continue reading →
IKEA Överallt truly everywhere but not in SA; highlight of Design Indaba in Cape Town!
While I have shopped at IKEA in Southampton with my son now living in the UK, I have not been near an IKEA anything in Cape Town. This changed last week, during Design Indaba 2019, when IKEA had a prominent IKEA Överallt ( meaning everywhere in Swedish) outdoor stand at the foot of the Artscape Theatre building. It reflected the best creativity in design in Africa, a social responsibility project of the global Swedish home interior design company. But there is little chance of the company opening any stores in our country within the next five years, it was confirmed. Continue reading →
Netflix Chef’s Table new Pastry series mouthwatering sweet deliciousness, not all about Pastry!
Chef’s Table is one of the most highly regarded cooking series on television, Netflix having set the highest bar in two series to date, each featuring six world class chefs, as well as one focused on top chefs in France, with outstanding filming. Now it has released a Pastry series of four episodes, deliciously mouthwatering! Continue reading →
New Saint ‘Pazzo Italiano’ restaurant to open in Sandton, another Chef David Higgs collaboration!
Following the successful opening of Marble in Rosebank in Johannesburg in 2016, Chef David Higgs and entrepreneur Gary Kyriacou are planning to open Saint ‘Pazzo Italiano’ in Sandton in August. Continue reading →
Restaurant Review: Coco Safar brings Parisian Pâtisserie, world’s best coffee, and unique coffee and Rooibos Brewery to Cape Town, ahead of international launch!
I was invited to the newly opened Coco Safar a few days ahead of its opening in the newly refurbished Artem centre, previously the Adelphi Centre in Main Road in Sea Point. A week ago I invited a young chef intern to join me for Brunch at Coco Safar, on a Sunday morning. Continue reading →
Restaurant Review: Kleinsky’s New York-style Jewish Delicatessen opens second branch, on Church Square, new food hub in Cape Town!
Yesterday I met Urban Lime Marketing Director and friend Katie Friedman for lunch at Kleinsky’s, a New York Deli-style, kosher-style, Jewish cuisine eatery on Church Square, being developed as an exciting new inner-city food hub. Kleinsky’s is the second Delicatessen to be opened in Cape Town, its Sea Point branch having opened two years ago. Continue reading →