As if Franschhoek does not have enough restaurants already, the Gourmet Capital sees two new Italian restaurants opening their doors.
Residence Klein Oliphants Hoek, long the home of Camil and Ingrid Haas, and well-known for its gourmet menu whilst they were the owners of the guest house, stopped serving food a year ago when they sold the guest house. Camil Haas now cooks up a storm at his restaurant Bouillabaisse. Klein Oliphants Hoek is now Italian-owned, and has just opened its in-house Italian restaurant.
Franschhoek franchise restaurant Col’caccio is set to see some serious competition when Allora Ristorante Classico opens at the entrance to Franschhoek next week. Its positioning on its website is a mouthful: “Allora is an archetypical Italian restaurant, meaning it purveys authentic Mediterranean cuisine with, in this case, the distinctively Italian articulation that has made Italian food universaly(sic) popular. Allora is distinctly upmarket with a refined atmosphere. It edges on sophistication, yet its village feel make it lean away from being pretentious. It’s a bit like fine dining without all the pomp and ceremony.” Currently two Allora Ristorantes operate in Johannesburg, in Sandton and in Bedfordview.
Whilst the menu on the website looks good enough to eat, the exterior of the Allora building in Franschhoek could do with some decor guidance. It has been newly painted in cream, and a brown that one cannot describe in polite terms. Clearly Franschhoek’s strict Aesthetics Committee is not regulating aesthetic appeal as much as it controls the design of properties in Franschhoek, if the renovation of the Allora building has received its blessing.
Another building that could have done with decor approval from the Aesthetics Committee is the new Kalfi’s restaurant in the same street block as Franschhoek’s two best known restaurants Reubens and Le Quartier Francais. It has the most unappealing yellow and bright green pine tables and chairs on its street terrace, looks cheap and nasty, and therefore feels to be completely out of place in the Gournet Capital of the country. Yet the local Franschhoekers love Kalfi’s (the name of the owner) home-grown South African menu.
More restaurants are set to open in Franschhoek in the next month.
Col’cacchio is collaborating with six top chefs in raising funds for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. For every ‘designer’ pizza sold, created by a different chef each month, R 5 goes to the Hospital fund. 