Chef Peter Tempelhoff, of Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant The Greenhouse at the Cellars-Hohenhort, has created a special dessert he calls ‘Table Mont Blanc’, in honour of Cape Town hosting World Design Capital 2014.

I received information about the dish from Cape Town Design NPC, the company managing Cape Town’s role as World Design Capital 2014, in its latest newsletter, which shared the news and the ingredients of the dish, but did not add a visual.  I was impressed with the speed of response from both Eclipse PR, handling the PR locally for World Design Capital 2014, and from The Greenhouse, despite the restaurant being closed for its winter break.  Very impressive was Chef Peter calling, to establish exactly what I required, not having seen the newsletter with the information about his dish.

The ‘Table Mont Blanc‘ dessert represents Table Mountain, according to Chef Peter, ‘but only abstractly… as we would rather leave a bit to the imagination.  The real symbiosis between the dessert and the actual mountain is in the ingredients.  Each integral part of the dessert is flavoured with an ingredient found on the slopes of the mountain’.   The elements of the dessert are the following:

‘Chestnuts: The chestnut puree (Mont Blanc) was made from the chestnut trees on Rhodes Drive.

Stone Pine Trees (Pinus Pinea):  The chocolate cremeaux (mousse) is flavoured with the pine needles gathered from the slopes of Devil’s Peak

Fynbos: Table mountain (sic) fynbos was combined with caramel chocolate to form the nitro mousse which is the top of the dessert. Fynbos was also used with yoghurt for the ice cream in the dish.

Vin de Constance: The grapes for South Africa’s most famous wine, Vin de Constance, are grown on the slopes of table mountain (sic)– the golden jelly on the dish is made from this wine.

Acorns: oak trees in the Tokai forest were used in the soil under the dessert

Mountain Water: Water from Newlands spring was combined with cocoa and lecithin to create the chocolate clouds flowing off the praecipes’ (sic)

Table Mont Blanc will be served at The Greenhouse when the restaurant re-opens from its winter break on 1 August.

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