Franschhoek has joined The Délice Network of Good Food Cities of the World, an international network of cities promoting the benefits of culinary excellence and good food, in partnership with the Cape Winelands District Municipality.
The Délice Network has 21 member cities, including Barcelona, Madrid, Montreal, Lausanne, Milan, Copenhagen, Chicago, Gothenburg, Birmingham, Helsinki, and Brussels. It is the only city in the Continue reading →
Julia Hattingh is the fourth chef at Franschhoek Kitchen since Holden Manz bought the previously named Klein Genot wine estate, and it was renamed after the owners’ surnames. She is a breath of fresh air, and the restaurant will attract back customers, as Chef Julia settles in and takes the restaurant to a new level.
Security is stricter now, one having to fill in a sheet at the boom, but friendly. One walks through the downstairs tasting room to get to the upstairs restaurant, and I chose the smaller room with the fireplace. Front of House Manager Cobi Bosch is new, and he and I did not gel at all. He previously worked at Rhapsody’s at Cape Town International and in Bloemfontein. I knew that Manager Wayne Buckley would pop in, and I did want to meet Chef Julia, which made me stay. Cobi also served as the waiter on Monday. He recommended to a neighbouring table what his favourite dishes are, in guiding them what to order (they ordered a cheese platter to share in the end), but did not offer me this service. He brought two wine lists, one with Holden Manz wines, and the other with wines from their ‘friends’, being other wine estates in Franschhoek and one in Stellenbosch, telling me that the Chardonnay on the list was sold out already. He seemed most put out when I requested butter instead of the bottles of Willow Creek extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, for the slices of olive oil bread which he had brought to the table. Continue reading →
A number of Franschhoek’s top chefs will pair their delectable dishes with the wines of the local wine estates at ‘Cook Franschhoek’, running from 13 – 15 June, sharing their special cooking tips, reflecting the food trend of getting back to basics.
Spread around the wine estates and restaurants of Franschhoek, the participating chefs will allow workshop participants into their domains, and share their cooking secrets, while the winemakers will guide the attendees on choosing the most suitable wines to pair with each dish made. At the end of each workshop, the dishes cooked and the wines paired will be available to taste. It also allows one to interact with the chefs and winemakers in small groups, and to ask more specific questions.
The participating Franschhoek chefs subscroibe to the cooking basics, such as ‘snout-to-tail’ food usage, meaning that every piece of an animal such as a pig is used (such as witnessed on MasterChef SA Season 2 when Chef Chris Erasmus of Pierneef à La Motte cooked a pig’s head to make a terrine); sourcing ingredients fresh from the farm to the table, within close proximity to the restaurants; smoking meats, charcuterie being the speciality of Chef Neil Jewell of Bread & Wine; cooking over a fire, including a rotisserie, a Green Egg, and Weber; and Nordic cooking techniques of pickling, fermenting, and preserving. Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Indaba will have 23 African countries promoting their countries’ tourism products, making it the first comprehensive Africa tourism exhibition. A total of 400 exhibitors has been signed up for the show, held in Durban from 10 -12 May, with more than 1000 visitors confirmed to date.
* Mozambique and South Africa have signed a biodiversity and an anti-poaching agreement to combat the poaching of rhino in the Greater Limpopo Cross-Border Park in particular, which is a culmination of the Kruger Park, the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, and the Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe. The number of rhino killed due to poaching has grown almost 300-fold in the last seven years!
* BBC Worldwide will not be doing a fourth season of ‘Come Dine with Me South Africa‘, despite attracting 5 million local viewers. The broadcaster is looking at doing a more localised program.
* ‘Cook Franschhoek‘ will be held in Franschhoek from 13 – 15 June, with Franschhoek chefs doing cooking Continue reading →