Tag Archives: Benguela on Main

Restaurant Review: New ëlgr. has most complex restaurant name, a breath of fresh air, food light and multi-cultural!

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The new ëlgr. restaurant which has taken over the space of the former Janse & Co is a breath of fresh air, having moved more of its restaurant seating to its newly created outside seating area, bar and pizza counter area. It opened on Kloof Steeet two months ago.

It has the most complicated restaurant name I have ever come across, a Swedish word that means moose, but the reason for the choice is not explained. It is pronounced like the composer Elgar. With such a Scandinavian introduction, one might expect the food to be from the region too, but it is local yet ‘multicultural’, its website informs, offering French cooking, South African dishes, and Italian pizzas., made with fresh ingredients, and to be enjoyed in a relaxed environment.  Continue reading →

Benguela Collection adds Anton Smit Sculpture Park to its Hermanus and UK Leonardslee properties!

On Saturday I attended the opening of the new Art Gallery and Sculpture Park at Benguela Cove outside Hermanus, with 40 sculptures by master sculptor Anton Smit spread around the wine and residential housing estate. The local Sculpture Park flows from a collaboration between Smit and Benguela Collection owner Penny Streeter to create a Sculpture Park at its Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens in the UK. Continue reading →

Chef Jean Delport becomes second SA Chef to head up a Michelin star restaurant, at Interlude at Leonardslee in the UK!


The most exciting news for the South African restaurant industry is that Interlude, at Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens in the UK, was crowned with a 2020 Michelin star today, the kitchen headed up by South African Chef Jean Delport, formerly of Benguela on Main in Somerset West. It follows in the footsteps of JAN restaurant in Nice, owned by South African Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen, which also has one Michelin star. It may be no coincidence that both chefs studied at the very under the radar Zevenwacht Chef School.  Continue reading →

Chef Jean Delport continues his cuisine creativity at Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens in the UK!

Last Thursday my son and I visited Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens in Horsham, West Sussex, in the UK, on my first day of visiting the country. I loved seeing Chef Jean Delport, previously working at my then favorite restaurant Benguela on Main in Somerset West, and enjoying his creative take on Afternoon Tea at the estate.
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