JHP has published its top 21 Restaurant list, awarding plates rather than a ranking or stars, and adding a 3-plate accolade for the first time this year in the second year of her awards. There are some surprise inclusions and dare I say karmic exclusions! 

Jenny Handley runs a performance and brand company, and writes for some publications too. She established the Gourmet Guide 2016/2017 for the first time last year, and awarded the 21 plates at the Good Food & Wine Show. On Monday the awards were presented at The Stack, and winners from all areas in the country were fêted in Cape Town. Of the 21 restaurant winners, five were from regions outside of the Cape. 

The judging procedure was described as follows: Restaurants were evaluated by what sounds like a panel of critics, with one judge only (one assumes Jenny Handley herself) validating the restaurants, ‘so that all restaurants are rated in a uniform, precise and detailed manner using extensive and holistic criteria’! This quote from the Gourmet Guide sounds terribly vague and pretentious, and does not reveal which aspects of the restaurants were evaluated! No rules are defined for the period of operation (e.g. Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia has not been operating for a full year, Chef Michael Degg left Delaire Graff at the end of September). 

The Guide states that three plate awards can only be presented if the restaurant has previously received one or two plates, hence delivering on consistency. A previous plate allocation does not automatically promise evaluation for the following year’s Guide.  One plate denotes ‘excellent cuisine’; two plates recognizes ‘exceptional dining that demands a detour’; and the newly added three plate rating honours ‘world-class destination dining – worthy of a flight’.

The preamble to the plate awards explains why plates are awarded, reflecting that a good dining experience is not only about the physical presentation of the food on the plate, but also is about the ‘provenance of produce’, another mouthful of a term! Other aspects evaluated include the chef’s philosophy, innovation, quality of service, the quality of the ‘epicurean experience’, making up a total of 32 criteria, but not presented in full nor is the rating weighting revealed! Value for money is excluded from the list of criteria. 

Chef Chantel Dartnall of Mosaic Restaurant outside Pretoria won the inaugural Swiss Culinary Innovation Award as the most creative chef in South Africa. 

The 21 plated restaurants are as follows:

3 plate restaurants 

La Colombe in Cape Town

Restaurant Mosaic in Pretoria (photograph left)

Tbe Test Kitchen in Cape Town 

2 plate restaurants

Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia 

DW Eleven-13 in Johannesburg 

Foliage in Franschhoek

Greenhouse in Cape Town

 The Pot Luck Club in Cape Town 

The Restaurant at Waterkloof in Somerset West (photograph right)

1 plate restaurants 

Aubergine in Cape Town

Camphors at Vergelegen in Somerset West

Chef’s Table at Belmont Mount Nelson in Cape Town 

Delaire Graff Restaurant in Stellenbosch 

Hartford House in KwaZulu-Natal (photograph left)

Indochine in Stellenbosch 

Luke Dale-Roberts X Saxon in Johannesburg

Marble in Johannesburg

Myoga in Cape Town

Nobu in Cape Town

Terroir in Stellenbosch

The Roundhouse Restaurant in Cape Town. 

Compared to the previous Guide, the following restaurants are new winners: Marble, Delaire Graff, Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia, The Restaurant at Waterkloof, Greenhouse, and Chef’s Table at Belmond Mount Nelson. 

Compared to last year, the following restaurants have dropped off the list: Ellerman House (Chef Veronica Hibbert moved to The Silo), Jordan Restaurant, Qunu at The Saxon, Springfontein Eats, The  Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français (closed down earlier this year), and Winehouse in Johannesburg. 

Restaurants which have not been acknowledged for two years running: Overture, Tokara, Pierneef à La Motte, The Kitchen at Maison (Chef Arno Janse van Rensburg leaves the restaurant next week, to open Janse & Co in December), Grande Provence (Chef Darren Badenhorst has left to open his new restaurant Le Coin Français), Rust en Vrede (Chef John Shuttleworth has returned to the UK),  The Werf at Boschendal, Chefs Warehouse & Canteen, The Shortmarket Club, and Benguela on Main.

New top-end restaurants which opened in the past year which have not been acknowledged are La Tête, Foxcroft, Mulberry & Prince, Restaurant Jardine, Faber at Avondale, and Wolfgat.

Marble’s one plate rating is a surprise, given that it is run by Chef David Higgs, who took Rust en Vrede to the top in the Eat Out Awards in 2010. The appearance of The Roundhouse on the list is surprising too, being so low key and under the radar, having lost its attraction. The same applies to the Chef’s Table at the Belmond Mount Nelson hotel. 

The Gourmet Guide 2018 can be ordered from Jenny Handley PR, or bought at book stores from November, at a cost of R 299. Each of the plated restaurants has pages dedicated to it, with a recipe or two.

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com Twitter: @Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein Instagram:@chris_ulmenstein