At the Eat Out Restaurant Awards 2017 this evening, held at GrandWest, some shock results stunned the restaurant industry. Eat Out continues its love affair with Chef Luke Dale-Roberts, with three of his four restaurants making the Top 10 Restaurant List, a spectacular achievement! The biggest shock was the spectacular slide of La Colombe, the restaurant which had all the opportunity to make the number one slot, but only making the seventh rank, a karmic reaction to the restaurant losing focus, opening too many restaurants, and getting involved in restaurant politics!

The Top 10 Restaurant Awards List is as follows:

1. The Test Kitchen, despite the spectacular crash out of the World’s 50 Best Restaurant List this year
2. Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient, outside Pretoria
3. Restaurant at Waterkloof
4. Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia, a spectacular success for the restaurant which has operated for less than a year, under the very able leadership of Head Chef Ivor Jones. Some very happy staff came to celebrate at La Parada Constantia Nek this evening! 
5. Greenhouse
6. Camphors at Vergelegen 
7. La Colombe 
8. The Shortmarket Club
9. Overture
10. The Pot Luck Club 

Cape Town is the new Cuisine Capital, with six of the ten restaurants being top ten restaurants, followed by Somerset West, with two top ten restaurants, not associated in the past with cuisine. excellence. Franschhoek has gone empty-handed this year, a shock to the village proudly calling itself the Gourmet Capital of our country! 

Linked directly to this Top 10 Restaurant List is the following Awards:

#.  Eat Out Service Excellence Award: Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient (photograph)

#.  Eat Out S. Pellegrino & Acqua Panna Chef of the Year: Liam Tomlin of Chefs Warehouse & Canteen on Bree Street, a restaurant which won Best Tapas restaurant in the Eat Out Everyday Eateries Awards last month, but which could not even make Eat Out Top 10, in fact making only the 21 – 30th rank, a miserable performance! Once again it shows Eat Out amending its past procedure with regard to this Award, the fourth slot chef even winning this award, as happened last year. Surely this Award should have gone to Chef Ivor Jones from Tomlin’s Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia, having made the fourth slot on the Top 10 Restaurant Awards List?! 

The ranking of the restaurants in 11 – 20th position was mentioned for the first time this year. Eat Out expanded the list of Finalist restaurants from 20 to 30 this year, leaving at least ten bitterly disappointed Restaurants this year:

• 11.  Jardine Restaurant in Stellenbosch
• 12.  Foliage in Franschhoek, a shock for this good performing restaurant
• 13.  Wolfgat in Paternoster 
• 14.  Jordan Restaurant in Stellenbosch 
• 15.  Fermier Restaurant in Pretoria
• 16.  Thali, another Tomlin Restaurant 
• 17.   DW Eleven-13 in Johannesburg 
• 18.  Hartford House in KZN, the only top restaurant in the province.
•  19.  Luke Dale-Roberts  X The Saxon 
• 20.  La Tête in Cape Town

The restaurants which were ranked 21 to 30 are Marble (a spectacular shock, the restaurant headed by Award-winning Chef David Higgs, a judge of the Awards last year!), Faber at Avondale, Foxcroft, Springfontein Eats, Indochine, Chefs Warehouse & Canteen, La Mouette, Mulberry & Prince, Terroir (a shock, always previously being top ten or top twenty), and Makaron Restaurant. 

Other Award winners were the following:

#.  Eat Out Retail Capital New Restaurant of the Year: La Petite Colombe, a surprise that the restaurant which only opened on 1 August received this accolade so soon after opening, given that Eat Out would have had to make the decision in the first month of operation of this restaurant, to send the Eat Out magazine to print! Interesting is that Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen announced this Award at the event! We made a case that his Michelin-star restaurant JAN should have made the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant List, being the best South African restaurant in the world! 

Eat Out Top 30 Restaurant shortlist 2017: Why is JAN restaurant missing? Chefs Luke vs Liam, breaks its own eligibility rules on three restaurants!!!

#   Eat Out Graham Beck Chefs’ Chef, selected by chefs, but the procedure for this vote and eligibility were not defined by Eat Out: Kobus van der Merwe, of Wolfgat in Paternoster.this is a new Award,  introduced this year. 

#   Eat Out Rising Star: Kayla-Ann Osborn, The Chef’s Table, Umhlanga 

#.  Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability Award: Camphors at Vergelegen 

#.  Eat Out Wine Service Award:  Moses Magwaza, Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient

#.  Eat Out John Phillis Award for Outstanding Contribution to Service: Morne Wessels, La Petite Colombe 

#. Eat Out Lannice Snyman Lfetime Achievement Award: Letitia Prinsloo, of the Institute of Culinary Arts

#   Eat Out Style Award: Fermier Restaurant in Pretoria 

#   Woolworths TASTE Eat Out Bursary: Bryan Mlotshwa, who will be studying at the Jackie Cameron School of Food and Wine. 

Complaints were aired on Twitter about the quality and quantity of the food, or lack of, and the poor shuttle service between the car park and the event venue. 

It was the first year since writing about Restaurants in over ten years that I have not attended the Eat Out Awards, having left my booking far too late, and being on a waiting list with 79 others. Next year I will book immediately! 

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel 082 55 11 323 Twitter: @Ulmenstein Facebook: click here Instagram: @Chris_Ulmenstein