Tag Archives: Business Report

Restaurant Review: Palma on Bree Street authentic Italian family-run, but no passion!

Palma Interior candles Whale CottageAbout ten days ago Orphanage Cocktail Emporium co-owner Katie Friedman introduced me to new eateries Mother’s Ruin Gin Bar and Palma in the next street block on Bree Street, being landlord to both.  My experience of Palma on that evening differed vastly from that of our dinner last night.

I had invited my friend Whitney to join me, and we chose an outside table, given how hot it still was when we arrived.  It was lighter than on my previous visit, and the ‘less is more’ interior design impressed.  General Manager Roberto Carluzzo did not seem to recognise me, or to react to the Facebook posts and the blogpost I had written about the 26 eateries on Bree Street subsequent to my first visit.  The doorman did however welcome me back, a nice touch.  Mama Palma Carluzzo was in the bar, putting on finishing touches to leaving, and I was disappointed, as we had been told that she is the chef, in charge of Continue reading →

Franschhoek Literary Festival off this year, with poor aftertaste before it starts!

The organisers of the 7th Franschhoek Literary Festival have attracted negative attention to the 2013 event, taking place this weekend, before it has even started, with the announcement last week that no South African wine writer was good enough to win this year’s South African Wine Writers Award, sponsored by Boekenhoutskloof’s Porcupine Ridge to the value of R25000.

Organised by Franschhoek Wine Valley Tourism (FWV), the media release to announce this slap-in-the-face news to all local wine writers did not offer any further explanation. What is not known is which wine writers entered the competition and why the judges John Maytham of radio station Cape Talk and occasional wine writer himself; BBC radio producer and author Duncan Minshull, with no apparent wine writing experience or wine knowledge; and Canadian VINES editor Christopher Waters did not find any of the entries to be of a high enough standard.  The winner and first runner-up were to have been announced at Essence (hardy known for its winelist!) on Friday, as part of the Franschhoek Literary Festival.  In its fifth year of the Award, past winners are Joannne Gibson, Norman McFarlane, and Tim James (who won twice).  The Award recognises technical quality and literary quality, the Franschhoek Wine Valley said in its media release when calling for entries, having to do a reminder call, possibly due to too few or too poor quality entries received.  Oddly the media release regarding the outcome of the judging appears to have been removed from the FWV website, and has not been sent by the PR agency of FWV, Smart Communication and Events, nor by its CEO Jenny Prinsloo, nor by the publicist Claire Richards for the Franschhoek Literary Festival, when requested!  This may be due to the amusement with which wine whiner Neil Pendock has written about this state of affairs (e.g. ‘SA wine writers; From Bad to Bizarre’), the only wine writer who appears to have commented about the poor quality wine writing, as judged by the Franschhoek Literary Festival judging panel!  Pendock cheekily suggested a course in wine writing for the Literary Festival after this fiasco!

The programme for this year’s Literary Festival is disappointing in terms of the quality and stature of the Festival, given the great authors who were invited in the past. Part of the reason could be that other Book and Literary Festivals have sprung up in Cape Town and in Knysna, since the successful Literary Festival was first conceived in Franschhoek.  The organising committee too may be to blame, having become rather arrogant, as we noted last year when we provided feedback to Literary Festival Director Jenny Hobbs, which she responded to with a curt ‘noted‘, unlike previous years, when she welcomed and discussed feedback. Leaking information to her infamous daughter Jane-Anne Hobbs about a Blogging workshop proposal for the Festival we had discussed with Hobbs snr, and mocked on the now defunct Twitter abuse account by Sonia Cabano, further demonstrated the lack of ethics of the Hobbs mother and daughter. No surprise is the inclusion of Hobbs jnr on the Festival programme!   Nepotistically Hobbs snr’s brother David Walters features in the Literary Festival programme too, with a ceramics exhibition ‘Words on Pots’ at his gallery!  Noseweek editor Martin Welz has managed to organise the first ever Franschhoek Literary Festival side event, with a weekend workshop at the Protea Hotel addressed by ‘activist experts’ Richard Young on the arms deal, David Klatzow on criminal prosecutions, Shaheen Moolla on the destruction of our marine life, and Mariette Liefferink on acid mine drainage and radioactive fallout.

Going through the programme to plan my attendance, I found little to excite me on this year’s programme. Twitter has one session dedicated to the fast-growing 140 character communication form, with past speaker and Woolworths’ social media practitioner Sam Wilson (8550 followers), writer/editor Julian Rademeyer (3500 followers), and Business Report columnist Ann Crotty (6 followers and still has an ‘egg’ profile picture, demonstrating what a newbie she is at Twitter!).  Blogging still is not recognised as a writing form by the Literary Festival organisers.  Alexander McCall-Smith probably is the biggest name the Literary Festival offers, but its media sponsor the Sunday Times is offering Capetonians an opportunity to hear him speak in Cape Town later this week! Award-winning writers on the programme are Lauren Beukes, Christopher Hope, and Antjie Krog, with Jane Raphaely, Finula Dowling, Marguerite Poland, Hermann Giliomee, Tony Leon, and Melanie Verwoerd also being well-known.

Every year Christopher Duigan runs the Autumn Music Festival alongside the Franschhoek Literary Festival, and performs ‘Literary Liszt’ on Friday at 19h30, two Schubert-dedicated concerts on Saturday and on Sunday morning, and a free ‘Voices for Africa’ performance on Saturday evening, all performed in the Dutch Reformed church on the main road.

Despite the disappointing programme this year we are grateful to the organisers for putting on the event, and for most Franschhoek accommodation establishments and restaurants already being fully booked weeks ahead of this coming weekend.  Attendees of the Literary Festival do not only enjoy attending the sessions, but also like interacting with each other at guest house breakfasts, and at coffee shops and restaurants in Franschhoek.  Booking in advance is advised, as a number of sessions are sold out already.  Excellent weather is forecast for the weekend.

Franschhoek Literary Festival, 17 – 19 May. www.flf.co.za Twitter: @FranLitFest R60 per one hour session. www.webtickets.co.za

POSTSCRIPT 13/5: We have received the following statement, written by organisers Jenny Hobbs and Sheenagh Tyler and sent by Claire Richards, the Franschhoek Literary Festival PR consultant, to explain the lack of a 2013 South African Wine Writers Award:

‘STATEMENT ON THE WINE WRITER’S PRIZE

The FLF wishes to clarify a few points around the 2013 Wine Writer’s Prize, which was not awarded this year.

· The prize is funded by the Franschhoek Literary Festival and presented by the CEO of Franschhoek Wine Valley.

· The independent judges for 2013 were John Maytham (South Africa), Christopher Hope (a South African who lives in France) and Christopher Waters (Canada).

· 20 submissions were sent to the judges after the deadline was extended.

· In 2012 there were 23 submissions.  Several wine writers declined to submit entries this year, feeling that they had nothing suitable to offer.

· Submissions are sent to the judges anonymously.  Two in Afrikaans were judged as such by John Maytham and Christopher Hope and translated for Christopher Waters.

· No payment is involved.  The judges are thanked for their work with the offer of a case of South African wine.

· Their unanimous decision this year was that not one of the entries lived up to the expected literary and technical qualities of wine writing.

· The FLF is funded by Porcupine Ridge Wines and the Sunday Times, neither of which groups has any say in the judges’ decision, and ticket sales.

· A discussion will be held by the organisers and their advisers after the FLF about the parameters for the prize in future years.

· We warmly thank those wine writers who made positive suggestions in this regard and welcome further suggestions from wine writers.

· Contact details of more South African wine writers to add to our mailing list would also be very welcome.

Jenny Hobbs, FLF Director & Sheenagh Tyler, FLF Manager’

POSTSCRIPT 17/5: There appears to be confusion between the sponsor Porcupine Ridge and the Literary Festival organisers about the hashtag for the Festival.  It has been confirmed that it is #FLF13. Porcupine Ridge appears to have printed all its marketing material for the Festival as #FLF2013!  A much larger problem to befall the Festival is that one of its lead speakers Anthony Horowitz has withdrawn from the Festival in the very last minute!  Franschhoek felt very commercialised today, with a massive bottle of Porcupine Ridge and many Sunday Times banners outside the town hall, the marketing effort of its two sponsors!

POSTSCRIPT 17/5: Sadly the Christopher Duigan ‘Literary Liszt’ concert in the Dutch Reformed Church this evening clashed with a wannabee Cat Stevens singing outside the church at the Night Market!

POSTSCRIPT 17/5: Neil Pendock has written another attack against the Franschhoek Literary Festival and its Director Jenny Hobbs , for insinuating that no local wine writer is good enough to win the prize. He suggests that each of the twenty entrants should sue the Franschhoek Literary Festival for the prize money of R25000, a total of R500000!  What is ironic is that the Sunday Times is the media sponsor of the Franschhoek Literary Festival, yet its irreverent wine whiner Pendock is disparaging the Festival on the blog which belongs to the newspaper!

POSTSCRIPT 18/5: The Franschhoek Literary Festival is in further trouble – a documentary ‘Truth be told’, which Noseweek was to flight in a fringe event to the Festival this weekend, was stopped after the SABC lawyers served papers on its producer Sylvia Vollenhoven, who was to speak about her battle to get the documentary flighted.  Earlier this year Vollenhoven flighted the documentary to a number of Noseweek reader groups in the dungeons of the Baxter!

POSTSCRIPT 19/5: Wine writer and PRO Emile Joubert has written an Open Letter to the organisers of the Wine Writers’ Award!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Mayday, Mayday – Cape hospitality industry ship is sinking!

The signs are everywhere – doom and gloom where one goes in the hospitality industry – restaurants are close to empty, accommodation establishments cannot pull in guests, and the enquiries and bookings just are not rolling in, the 50 % deposits for accommodation establishments being an important means of surviving the winter. Bookings generally are a barometer of the summer season lying ahead.   The next few months will see a bloodbath of closures, as hospitality businesses run out of cash.

It is sad to see the day-to-day reality of close to empty hotels and guest houses, with a trickle of businesspersons keeping things going, and of seeing top restaurants in Cape Town and in the Winelands standing empty for weekend lunches and dinners, not to mention the poor weekday trade.   This scenario is despite fantastic winter specials  offered by close to 100 restaurants in the Cape and Winelands, and accommodation rates that drop by close to half from May to August.  Chats I have had with owners of restaurants and hospitality establishments in Cape Town and Franschhoek paint a picture of gloom, all saying that this May is far worse than last year’s.  Last May was not great, falling into a pre-World Cup vacuum.

Disturbing is to read headlines, such as in Business Report yesterday, crying “Hotels fill more rooms, but special offers hit profit”.  Referring to now two-months old figures for March, it writes that the occupancy in 3-, 4-, and 5-star hotels rose relative to March a year ago, but that revenues ‘are down steeply and some are making a loss’, especially in 4- and 5-star hotels, due to rates cut to meet those of 3-star hotels in some instances.  However, the ‘South African Hotel Review’ oddly showed lower occupancies for 3-star hotels than for more luxury hotels.  Many hotels are for sale, and being converted into retirement homes.   Protea Hotels says that it regularly receives requests for this largest local hotel group to take over the management or to buy their properties.  The hotel group understands the financial pressures on establishments, and their inability to cut its expenses, such as taxes and municipal costs, as these are fixed.

This scenario is echoed in the STR Global report, an international hotel data tracking company, which shows that 5-star hotels in Cape Town dropped their rates by 11% on average in the first quarter of this year, thereby increasing occupancy by 9%, to achieve an average occupancy of 63%, reports South African Tourism Update.  Sandton hotels dropped their rates by 9% on average in the same period, and achieved an average occupancy of 52%.   The Average Daily Rate for a 5-star hotel room in Cape Town was R1867, the survey found, compared to R1407 for Sandton’s 5-star hotels.   Nationally the 5-star hotel occupancy rose to 55% in the first quarter, but Average Daily Rate dropped by 9% to R1629, and Revenue per Available Room dropped by 6 % to R893.

In complete contrast, the Business Report  lead article optimistically trumpeted in its headline report yesterday “Consumers now in better shape”, when most hospitality owners will say that the recession has hit South Africans hard for the first time.   The newspaper report bases its sensational headline on the good financial results posted the day before by Famous Brands (with low-cost restaurant chain brands Steers, Wimpy, Debonairs and Mugg & Bean), which opened 111 outlets until February 2011, and plans to open a further 176 outlets in the year to come, and has an objective to double the size of its business by 2013.   The company benefited greatly from the World Cup.  The Lewis Group as well as Verimark also posted good results.

What is of the biggest concern for the summer season lying ahead is that the UK market is extremely quiet, with only a few enquiries trickling in from a handful of regular guests.  Agents and tour operators report how cash-strapped British consumers are, and that they are just not travelling, due to the austerity measures and tax increases imposed by their government, and the strong Rand.  The forecast is for the hottest UK summer in years, which is not good news for Cape Town.  A small consolation is the increase in the number of BA flights, to two per day, between London and Cape Town from October, reports the Cape Argus.  The eruption of the Grimsvötn volcano appears to have had no effect on business locally, due to the low numbers of international arrivals this month.

The South African hospitality industry will be largely dependent on the South African domestic market, and the promised SA Tourism advertising campaign to encourage locals to travel in their own country has not yet been seen.  It is sorely needed.  So too is some advice and comfort from our tourism bodies Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, who are not communicating with their members, other than to list winter specials.

The recent accolades that Cape Town and South Africa received from TripAdvisor members and Telegraph readers, respectively, earlier this month appear to have made no impact on enquiries and bookings at all.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Social media grows and evolves, constant challenge for food/wine bloggers

From being one of a handful wine estates using social media two years ago, Backsberg is now one of about 300 (around 50 %) of wine estates who do so.  This places pressure on all wine estates to constantly reevaluate their social media strategy, to remain ahead as well as relevant to one’s followers and friends, said Simon Back, Marketing Manager of Backsberg.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club last night met at Rainbow Experience in Mandela Rhodes Place, which will be the venue for the Cape Town Show supper club, which opens on 5 November as a musical and food showcase, including Cape Jazz, Goemma, Kaapse Klopse, Township jive, Kwela and Mpantsula on the music side.   The bloggers attending were spoilt with a taste of the menu that will be served with the Show: African Hummus and Cape Snoek pate served with Lavache as starters; Lentil cottage pie, Dukkah Crusted Beef fillet and traditional Cape chicken curry as main courses; and desserts were Malay koeksisters, Dutch melktert and a traditional chocolate brownie.  

Simon first became interested in social media when he read the Stormhoek case study initiated by marketer Chris Rawlinson, the wine having been marketed purely by means of blogging, long before most winemakers had even heard the word.  From early beginnings Simon’s blog readers grew to include regular readers.  He switched from Blogger to WordPress, finding it driving more traffic to the Backsberg website.  As the blog readership grew, Simon realised that he had to make a commitment to write regularly, and he advised new bloggers to not commit to blogging if they cannot keep up with the regular commitment, and to rather Tweet or Facebook.   Simon had to find his focus in writing the Backsberg blog, choosing specifically to write about his family farm Backsberg, and wine in general in South Africa.   Twitter and Facebook have grown tremendously in importance, and Simon says that the 900 or so Facebook friends are worth more to him than hitting thousands of ‘uncommited’ readers via an advertisement.   Simon writes from a personal Twitter account (@SimonBack) and a colleague writes from the @Backsberg Twitter account, to keep content fresh and unduplicated.  A monthly newsletter is sent to members of the Backsberg Wine Club, and the Facebook and Twitter presence of Backsberg is aimed at increasing the number of members.   Simon shared with the bloggers that he was shocked to hear recently that newsletters are dead as a form of communication, because they contain too much information, and do not appeal to readers whose attention span is reducing due to information overload.  Simon foresees an application like 4Square becoming more important, with incentives being offered linked to one’s brand.  Simon has been recognised as one of the most social media savvy wine marketers, and represented South Africa at a Prowein conference in Germany on social media earlier this year. 

Backsberg is synonymous with environmental care and reducing its carbon footprint.  Backsberg was the third carbon neutral wine estate in the world, and the first in South Africa, a pioneer in this important eco-orientated wine production. It is the first South African wine company to bottle its wines in plastic bottles under the Tread Lightly brand, a further environmental-concern action by Backsberg.  The Food and Wine Bloggers were spoilt with Backsberg Sauvignon Blanc 2010 and the Merlot.   Simon’s talk was so successful, various aspects of it having been tweeted by the Food & Wine Bloggers during the meeting, that “Simon Back” became a “breaking” trending topic about three hours after the meeting.

Tom Robbins only recently started his eatcapetown Blog, focusing purely on Restaurant Reviews.  He has been a journalist at Business Report, and has written about most things other than food in this capacity.  He is a freelance journalist writer and “hobby” reviewer, he says.  He is interested in the anthropology of food, and regularly reads international restaurant reviewers’ reviews.   His policy is to be fair and objective, and he likes to tell the story, making his reviews longer.  He likes to discuss the type of clients he sees in the restaurant, its interior and exterior look, including the type of cars parked outside, and does not focus on the food alone.  

Tom calls for independence from bloggers, and asks that they declare the free meals and wines reviewed.   Tom feels that free gifts make one loose objectivity.  Yet, he says, one can argue that an invitation may give one access to a chef, and a chat to him/her may give one interesting insights into the restaurant and its food, which could add to one’s review.  He prefers anonymity, and therefore uses an illustration of himself on his blog so that he is not recognised when he enters a restaurant.   He does not ask many questions, hoping to experience as average a meal as possible.  Tom quoted the example of Jancis Robinson, who refers to www.wine-searcher.com in her reviews, and discloses in them that she receives a fee for her referrals.  Guaranteeing editorial coverage for advertising placed in a wine magazine, for example, has no credibility for the reader, when they spot the advertisement a few pages along.  “I believe disclosure indicates respect for readers” he said.  Disclosure of freebies is currently being debated in the USA and is likely to be legislated.   It is already included the American Bloggers’ code of conduct.   A question from a blogger about why chefs ands restaurants take reviews so badly was debated, and it was felt that chefs are known to have enormous egos, and that they are ecstatic when the review is good, and tend to ban patrons when it is critical.  Tom said this is ‘human nature’, and probably most people would react this way.

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   Each of the two bloggers talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging.  The Club gives fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others.  Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.  The Club meetings are informal and fun.

The next meeting of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club is on Wednesday 24 November, from 6 – 8 pm, at the Grand Daddy Hotel in Long Street.  Food blogger Mariska Hendricks from The Creative Pot Blog and Emile Joubert from the Wine Goggle Blog will be ‘paired’.  Contact Chris at info@whalecottage.com to book.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter @WhaleCottage