I had heard from restaurants that a new ‘Gourmet Guide‘ is to published, with a listing and evaluation of our country’s Top 100 restaurants. The evaluation of the restaurants is to be done on the basis of the Michelin-system, with unidentified ‘inspectors’ visiting restaurants to do the evaluations.

The ‘Gourmet Guide’ will be published by MapStudio, and will contain the evaluation of the best restaurants, as selected by Jenny Handley of Jenny Handley Promotions. She will also visit a broad spectrum of restaurants, and interview the chefs to provide background information for the Guide. Ms Handley told me that the Guide is due to be published in April next year. It will not carry any advertising for restaurants, clearly referring to the criticism levied against Eat Out for carrying advertisements for restaurants in its Guide.

Ms Handley has started a blog on which she is (very briefly) feeding (pardon the pun) back her restaurant experiences, with disappointingly poor photographs. She told me that not all the restaurants that she has written about will make the Top 100 list for her ‘Gourmet Guide‘. Worrying is the errors I have already picked up, getting chef and restaurant names incorrect! Restaurants which she has already written about are 95 Keerom, Myoga, La Boheme, Bombay Brasserie, Bistro Sixteen82, Nobu, Belmond Mount Nelson, Springfontein Eats, Grootbos, Hartford House, Beverley Hills, 9th Avenue Bistro, Camphors at Vergelegen, The Test Kitchen, Camissa at the Table Bay, Terroir, Aubergine, La Cucina, Winehouse at Ten Bompas, Grillhouse, Mosaic at The Orient, The Leopard, Indochine, The Kitchen at Maison, La Colombe, Foliage, Roots at Forum Homini, 54 on Bath, Athol Place, Oyster Box, Starlings, Licorish, Four Seasons The Westcliff, Cheyne’s, Don Armando, Societi Bistro, Four & Twenty, and Sanbona.

There is no sponsor of the ‘Gourmet Guide’, and it will be competitively packaged as South Africa’s only independent restaurant guide. At its awards event in September it was announced by Spill PR that American Express would be stepping up its Restaurant Award program, no longer demanding that restaurants be American Express merchants to qualify for an Award, and that it will be taking Eat Out head-on. It will allegedly introduce a number of restaurant award categories.

One wonders if there will be too many restaurant awards next year, with Eat Out, Rossouw’s Restaurants, Jenny Handley’s ‘Gourmet Guide’, and American Express Platinum Taste Awards (allegedly its new name) all competing for the chefs’ support!

POSTSCRIPT 11/12:  Further restaurants written about briefly are Waterkloof, Bistrot, Bizerca, and Ellerman House.

POSTSCRIPT 5/2:  Further restaurants reviewed briefly are Charango, Bread & Wine, Blaauwklippen, Chapman’s Peak Hotel, La Cucina, and Black Sheep.

POSTSCRIPT 14/3:  Restaurants referred to in the latest Blogpost are Del Mar, Oasis Bistro in the Mount Nelson, Blues, Savoy Cabbage, The Pot Luck Club, and Yumcious.

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