Restaurant Review: Pierneef à La Motte much improved, has lost Cape Winelands Cuisine focus!

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Sixteen months after visiting Pierneef à La Motte last, I found the restaurant cuisine to be vastly improved. It is sad to see that the Cape Winelands Cuisine no longer is the focus of the restaurant, when it is such a unique point of difference which the restaurant can claim, given its association with the best-known SA artist JH Pierneef and the book which has been published about Cape Winelands Cuisine.

It was the fantastic dessert which Chef Michelle Theron and her Pastry Chef Gareth Flynn had created for the Eat Out Awards Gala Lunch two weeks ago that made me return to the restaurant yesterday, sensing a vast improvement in cuisine creativity since my last visit. The dessert was acclaimed, and was regarded as the best dish of the six courses which were served at the Gala Lunch. The dessert was served on a Pierneef-branded wooden board, and the dessert glass was surrounded by a laser cut wrap-around of a Pierneef-style tree. Inside the glass was a lemon gel, a tree-shaped biscuit, and an opera cake. A chocolate balanced on the edge of the glass.

Manager Pierre offered us a choice of two tables, one on the protected terrace, and the other on the open terrace, with more of a breeze. For a short while we had to endure a group of parents and their very loud young children, but they luckily left soon thereafter. I spoke to Chef Michelle before my guests arrived, and she told me that they had planned the dessert for a long period, using the services of a lady in Franschhoek, who did the laser cut on the wooden boards, as well as the cut-outs of the Pierneef tree, all 700 of them for the Gala Lunch.

I invited Piet and Vero Huysentruyt to lunch, a Belgian couple who live across the road from La Motte for a part the year, being owners of The Conservatory. Chef Piet is a TV Chef, has written cookbooks, and owns Michelin star restaurant Likoké in France. I met him at Chefs who Share in Johannesburg in September. Chef Piet impressed with his creativity (he was paired for the Gala Dinner with The Saxon’s Candice Philip, a most exciting chef duo). Chef Piet has strong views about many topics, including restaurant reviewing and awards.

A wooden box with four bread options was served, the box being well filled compared to my last visit, with mosbolletjiebrood, fruited rye, Ouma se brood, and a multigrain as well as beetroot lavash. Oddly the bread selection was obscured by a printed ‘Ode to Bread’ by an unknown Pablo Neruda, it not serving any purpose, and hindering the photography of the bread selection. With it was served a beetroot paté with coriander and mustard. A further platter contained Shiraz butter, home-made sundried tomato paste, and olive tapenade.

We tried to each order something different. None of the starters interested me, given what Chef Piet and Vero ordered.

Chef Piet’s Confit melon and watermelon salad, with house Ricotta, Cape lamb ham, parsley and verbena dressing, and salted peanut brittle (R95) was a fresh surprise, and rated to be good by Chef Piet. The ricotta cheese got lost on the white plate in the photograph. Vero ordered roast chicken pilaf, served with a wild rice salad with garden herbs, toasted peanuts, and green sauce (R98). Other starters are roast cauliflower and chick pea soup (an odd offer on a summer menu), pickled fish, and wood oven-baked bread-and-bean salad.

Chef Piet ordered the ‘sustainable fish speciality’, which had no details provided on the menu as to its price nor what it would be served with. His dish was tuna. From my bill the charge was R185. It was served with an interesting black shard which looked almost identical in colour to the bowl in which it was served, being black with white spots. I asked Pierre how the shard was made, but he did not seem sure. Vero enjoyed the vegetarian main course of asparagus and lemon-stuffed pasta, served with a lemon and thyme velouté, pickled cucumber, a coriander and dill salad, and hazelnut crumble (R155). I was unsure about what to order, so decided on the Karoo lamb, served with a pea and potato emulsion, a lemon and biltong rissole (croquet), new season greens, and an almond salad (I requested the omission of pickled onions), topped with rösti, at R195. Other main course options were smoked Franschhoek trout, free-range pork terrine, grass-fed beef, and a Guinea fowl and quail galantine (poached, served cold, and coated with aspic). Sides cost R45.

My guests went off to play golf, so had to leave after the main courses. I stayed to try one of the desserts, and I was surprised that the masterful Pierneef dessert served at the Eat Out Awards was not on the menu. I found it difficult to chose a dessert, some of the dessert titles being over-complicated, and not enticing one to order them. I settled on a gluten-free Chocolate Affair (chocolate does not usually have gluten!), so somewhat misleading. Its description on the menu was confusing and not helpful in making a dessert selection: ‘chocolate mousse, frozen …not frozen… dehydrated and glazed’, at R85. It has received very positive feedback on our Facebook page. The protea stencil painted in with chocolate was an unusual touch. It consisted of a financier, white chocolate mousse, Cremeux, and Aero. Other dessert choices were a Pierneef-inspired cheese board, lemon cheesecake, ‘rose garden’, ‘science fiction’, vegan waffle, and Pierneef truffles.

Our waitress was over-confident, and did not offer my guests a choice of fresh water, which I was drinking. I asked her to replenish my water, which she did not do. When my guests declined to order a dessert, she decided that I did not need one either, which annoyed me. I told her that I would pay with Pierre inside the restaurant, but she instructed me that she would bring my bill to me at the table, completely ignoring my request, seemingly knowing better. I did inform Pierre. I was surprised that he still checked if I wanted to add a tip.

Despite the menu introduction referring to the JH Pierneef connection, and the Cape Winelands Cuisine, we could not find any Boland dishes on the menu, other than the Mosbolletjie bread, and the biltong in my lamb dish. It is a shame that Pierneef à La Motte has relinquished its differentiation. There is a crying need for a restaurant serving authentic South African cuisine, an opportunity which Pierneef à La Motte is not capitalizing on.