In her evaluation of the Top 20 restaurants for 2014, Eat Out editor and judge Abigail Donnelly observed a number of local food trends, which she shared in an article in Mail & Guardian, and also presented highlights of at the Eat Out Restaurant Awards last Sunday.

1.  The most important of them all must be Butter, as Abigail led a march of chefs and waiters into The Lookout Eat Out Restaurant Awards venue with Daisy the cow’s head sculpted from butter.  She writes: ‘I’ve seen butter moulded into cylinders or to look like paint on an artist’s palette, and scrumptious alternative spreads like baba ghanoush, tapenade and even biltong-dusted beef dripping‘.  She added that breads served are becoming more ‘ethnic‘, including lavash Armenian flat bread, Indian parathas and chilli bites, and Swedish bread soup.

2.  The main ingredients she saw on her food journey were pork (on every menu now, as cured, neck, fillet, and tails, and not just as pork belly), hake, corn, peas, and cauliflower, some ingredients reflecting seasonality due to the restaurant judging in winter.  The vegetables were prepared as purées, foams, and tempura. SASSI green hake is getting a make-over, being brined, roasted, or pan-seared.

3.   Vegetables are charred, ingredients are smoked, and charcoal is used for plating and flavouring oils and sauces.

4.  Underripe fruits are being used, such as green mulberries, strawberries, and almonds fresh off the tree, giving tartness to dishes.

5.   Interactive serving is increasing, with the delightful trend of chefs coming into the restaurant and interacting with guests, allowing them to hear guest feedback first hand.  At five hundred the chefs serve the food, which is refreshing.

6.  Dishes are paired not only with wines, but with craft beers and juices too in top restaurants.  An increasing number of imported wines on winelists was observed by Abigail.

7.   Playfulness is expressed on plates via edible pebbles, stones and mussel shells’,  Abigail writing that chefs are playing with diners’ perceptions, traditional sweet items having a savoury taste, and the other way round too.

8.   Cheese platters are featuring quality local cheeses, and Pierneef à La Motte includes a cheese souffle on its platter.  Rust en Vrede plates its cheeses in front of guests.

9.  For dessert macaroons remain popular, Abigail writes, but chefs are experimenting too, e.g. ‘mushrooms‘ filled with lemon cream, and served with tiny, tart, hibiscus-flavoured meringues; Jellies and salted caramel; and sweet ‘pebbles‘.

10.   As local chefs do stages in Scandinavian restaurants, are influenced by Asian cuisine, or go back to their grandmothers’ roots, they are increasing their use of pickling and fermentation to add taste to dishes.

Story telling is an underlying trend, and Chef Jackie Cameron from Hartford House shared that she is trying to recreate her own childhood memories as well as those of her staff in the dishes that she is creating.  Abigail does not mention edible flowers as a trend, which we are seeing frequently.  She also did not mention foraging from one’s own herb and vegetable garden (Pierneef à La Motte, Delaire Graff, Camphors at Vergelegen, to name a few), which is a fantastic trend, keeping things as local as possible.  Ethical sourcing was also not mentioned, all the rage now.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage