While the wine industry is centered in the Western Cape, and the province has the reputation for having the country’s best restaurants, it is two Gauteng restaurants which won the inaugural 2018 Diners Club ICON Winelist Awards. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Diner’s Club winelist awards
Diners Club Rossouw’s Restaurants loses Anna Trapido, back to JP Rossouw as restaurant reviewer?!
It was a chance biography summary of Anna Trapido that made me pick up that she referred to her relationship with the Diners Club Rossouw’s Restaurants 2015 guide in the past tense. A call to her yesterday confirmed that she is no longer writing reviews for Rossouw’s Restaurants, nor working on its 2016 Guide.
Trapido was quick to confirm that the relationship with JP Rossouw, publisher of the Platter’s
Wine Guide and his Rossouw’s Restaurants, ended amicably, and that she is working on a very exciting project, of which she cannot yet reveal the details. She was associated with Rossouw’s Restaurants for just over one year.
One wonders if Trapido, who comes across as a free-spirit, and not a corporate order-taker, was Continue reading →
Restaurant Review: Piazza Italia the restaurant Italians go to in Cape Town!
Piazza Italia appeared on our latest list of Restaurant Openings, and it was a Facebook message from Davide Ostuni, Puglia Cheese mozzarella producer by day and Chef at Piazza Italia by night, that encouraged me to try it out last night. The restaurant has two Italians in the kitchen, a genuine Italian menu (without pizza), and Italian patrons eating there, a vote of confidence in a restaurant which has only been open for a month.
The restaurant belongs to Theresa Pearman, who comes from the jewellery industry, and fashion designer Pietro Giannuzzi, who had a dream to open a restaurant in which they could welcome and entertain their friends, bringing their dining room to the restaurant. Neither of them have prior restaurant experience, giving them a refreshing approach to owning the business, and not having any preconceived ideas about restauranting. Pietro only recently met Davide, and Theresa described the two men as being ‘soul brothers’, having a ‘bromance‘ about Italian food. I have only met Davide briefly at Burrata some time ago, and have been to see the Puglia Cheese factory, shown around by Davide’s wife Ursula. I had forgotten that Davide and Ursula owned five Italian restaurants in London, before moving to Cape Town, Continue reading →
MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 16: ‘Quirky’ cooking, Mucking Afazing Charly’s Bakery, Khumo Twala flaps out!
The Pressure Test that five Red Team MasterChef SA Finalists, who lost the cook out in the Company’s Gardens in Cape Town yesterday, had to go through seemed less stressful and more fun than some of the others the Finalists have been through, in that they could let their creativity shine through. The winning Blue Team loved their visit to Charly’s Bakery in Cape Town.
The visiting Chef and ‘Bread and Butter’ column food writer for The Times 
was Andrea Burgener of The Leopard (no website for her restaurant, it appears) in Melville in Johannesburg, Chef Pete Goffe-Wood calling her the ‘Queen of Creative Cuisine’, well known for her creative cooking, eclectic and playful dishes created by experimentation, and tasty food. She presented three of her dishes, to give the Finalists an idea of what her restaurant serves, each dish having a twist on something well known, being ‘far removed from their origins’, she said. So, for example the steak tartare was presented on a Moroccan theme, and there was a ‘Korean spagbol‘, and 
a Gazpacho made with raw ginger. Textures are important, it was said, and Chef Andrea’s flavours ‘jump out‘. Chef Andrew 
Atkinson provided the brief for the Pressure Test: the Finalists had to create a dish of their own creation within 60 minutes, thinking out of the box, to be good enough to feature on Chef Andrea’s menu at Continue reading →