Tag Archives: The Saxon

South African Restaurants make the World Culinary Awards shortlist, including Utopia Cape Town!

 

For the second year running the World Culinary Awards are being held, celebrating and rewarding excellence. It is a sister event of World Travel Awards.

The 2021 finalists of the World’s Culinary Awards for the African and all other Continents have been announced, an award program which has stretched over the year, culminating in the announcement of the winners on 7 November.

Some of South Africa’s Best restaurants have been nominated, competing against the top Restaurants in Africa. These include Utopia Cape Town,  Wolfgat in Paternoster, Chefs Warehouse at Tintswalo Atlantic, Himitsu at Camps Bay Retreat, and Life Grand Café, all from the Western Cape. Continue reading →

Cape Town Top 20 World Travel Destination, home to 7 of South Africa’s Top 10 Hotels, according to 2020 Forbes Travel Guide!

 

The Forbes Travel Guide has included ten top South African hotels in its 2020 Star Award winner list, seven of which are in Cape Town, one in Stellenbosch, and two in Johannesburg. Cape Town also made the Guide’s Top 20;Travel Destination List. Continue reading →

Eat Out Awards 2019 full of drama and surprises, new awards, La Colombe overtakes The Test Kitchen for the first time as new number one restaurant in South Africa!

I cannot remember when an Eat Out Awards event was so exciting in its Top 10 countdown, with so many surprise restaurants on this year’s list, reflecting how more daring the Eat Out judging team has become, no longer playing it safe, which is highly commended. Since Chef Margot Janse took over in heading the Eat Out Awards judging panel in 2018, she has been ruthless in her restaurant recognition, which we already noticed when Eat Out announced its Top 30 nomination shortlist for this year, in some of the top restaurants it excluded! Continue reading →

American Express announces Top 2020 Dining Award winners, with a Johannesburg bias!

It was a multi-Award day on Monday this week, with both American Express (for the Western and Southern Cape), as well as the Gourmet Guide (National) announcing their 2020 Restaurant Award winners. A week earlier American Express had announced its Gauteng, Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal Awards. There were many similarities in the winners, yet some strange winners in the American Express Dining  awards documented in this post. Continue reading →

Little-known hospitality consultancy Hospitality Counsel announces Top 10 Chefs and Restaurants 2019!

It was a Facebook post by Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen of South African/French restaurant JAN in Nice that alerted me to the Hospitality Counsel 2019 ranking of our countries top ten Restaurants as well as Chefs, when he thanked them for being included in the Top 10 Chef List. No other restaurant or chef on the two lists appears to have announced the accolades from the Hospitality Counsel, awarded at an event called the 2019 Luxury Tourism Awards! Continue reading →

Four young chefs from Africa/Middle East go through to the global S.Pellegrino Young Chef Grand Finale in Milan in 2020, three from SA!

In a surprise announcement, not only one but four finalists in the Africa and Middle East region of the S. Pellegrino Young Chef Regional Semi-Final held in Cape Town on Monday, will be sent to Milan for the Grand Finale in May next year. But only one of the four young chefs will compete for the Global title of S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2020, being Chef Paul Thinus Prinsloo of The Restaurant at Waterkloof. Continue reading →

Eat Out Awards 2018: a refreshing change, knocks old-guard chefs off their multi-restaurant perches!

I could not think it possible that the Eat Out Awards 2018 could be so refreshingly different, but it appears that new Head Judge Margot Janse has created a fresh new look at the restaurant judging criteria. Many of our top old-guard chefs took a severe beating at the Awards last night!  Continue reading →

Pastry goes pink with new Callebaut Ruby RB1 pink chocolate!

In my passion of writing about food and restaurants in the main, I am very lucky and often spoilt. Yesterday I attended a historic event for the food and restaurant industry, the launch of the new Ruby RB1 chocolate by Callebaut, an iconic new pink chocolate, the first new chocolate launch in 80 years since the introduction of dark, milk, and white chocolates. It was developed over a period of ten years by Callebaut with a University in Germany. Continue reading →

Shock ranking on 51-100 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, South Africa drops out of Top 50 list!

It was a shock to see today that none of our country’s top restaurants have made the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, with both The Test Kitchen and La Colombe named today in the 51 – 100 ranking list, announced a week ahead of the 2017 World’s 50 Best Restaurant ceremony in Melbourne next Wednesday! Continue reading →