When UK wine judge and writer Jancis Robinson visited Cape Town last month, she brought her restaurant critic and former restaurateur husband Nick Lander along. He visited a handful of Cape Town restaurants, focusing mainly on Cape Town’s favourite foodie Bree Street, and wrote a brief overview about them.
Lander wrote that he found it hard to concentrate on Chef Christo Pretorius’ dishes of a lamb terrine, kingklip, and a milk and honey dessert, whilst eating at Azure at the Twelve Apostles Hotel & Spa, given the breathtaking view onto the Atlantic Ocean: ‘Cape Town’s natural beauty is so striking that it is impossible for any chef to compete‘. He blamed the lightweight Cape Town restaurant overview on the view!
Another view which he enjoyed was of Table Mountain, whilst spending five hours on Bree Street, with ‘… various exciting food and wine places that are emerging here‘. He added about Bree Street: ‘There is a sense of space here along the broad pavements, although how much longer this will last once its obvious pleasure factor is fully recognised, I am not sure‘.
Places into which Lander popped in were Atlas Trading Company on Wale Street, soon to move
from its long-standing location; Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants and Publik Wine Bar, sharing a space on Church Street off Bree Street; Jason’s Bakery; Sababa; and Chef’s Warehouse & Canteen.
Chef Liam Tomlin’s restaurant received the most column centimetres, praised for ‘the exceptional cooking style of Irish-born Liam Tomlin and the hospitality of his English-born wife, Jan‘, and the ‘best-value meal for a very long time’, paying R380 for 8 tapas dishes to share. He is critical of the ‘tapas‘ description, in that they ‘bear no recognition to the Spanish original. This is South Africa, after all, where appetites are large and therefore portion sizes have to be, too‘! Chef Liam admitted to Lander that he is ‘now cooking more happily than ever before in his career, a feeling I was definitely able to pick up on‘.
Chef’s Warehouse & Canteen is receiving an increasing number of accolades (Rossouw’s Restaurants and Eat Out Best Everyday Eatery), as well as international coverage, recently in the Wall Street Journal. One can say that is the midpoint of Bree Street, and the home of chefs on their day off!
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Tel (021) 433-2100, Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
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