Tag Archives: Fergus Henderson

Noma back as top World’s 50 Best Restaurants! The Test Kitchen Best in Africa and ranked 48th!

World's 50 Best Restaurants logoThe eagerly awaited 12th The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards was held last night at The Guildhall in London, and the Top 50 Restaurants were announced. Restaurants ranked 51st – 100th were listed on the Awards website, which crashed just after the Awards ceremony!

The initiative of Restaurant magazine in the UK, and using 900 judges from around the world, a total of 6552 votes were cast to vote for the world’s best restaurants.  The world was divided into 26 regions, chaired by an expert for that region.  Tamsin Snyman heads the Africa panel of 36 members, who had to eat at 4 local as well as at 3 international restaurants to cast their vote.  No score is required – the vote is purely for the best restaurants they ate at, and must be presented in ranked order.  Every year 10 panelists step down per region, to be replaced by new ones.   For the first time in seven years Snyman did not attend, for family reasons.

The biggest surprise was that Noma in Copenhagen went back to its number one Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 2 episode 7: Mystery Box 7 ingredients unlucky for some, Herman Cloete wins Mosaic MasterClass!

MasterChef 2 7 Mystery Boxes Kitchen Whale Cottage PortfolioThe first Mystery Box of Season 2 provided a surprising challenge in episode 7 last night, particularly as it contained chicken as one of the seven ingredients for a dish to be prepared within 45 minutes. The Finalist making the best dish would go to Pretoria, for a MasterClass on plating at Chef Chantel Dartnall of Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient.  Surprisingly some of the previous stars chickened out, while others shone.

The judges said that they were testing the ability of the Finalists to think on their feet. They were not given a recipe to prepare a dish within 45 minutes from all seven the ingredients: chicken, capers, verjuice, toasted bread crumbs, bone marrow, ricotta cheese, and asparagus spears.  Chef Benny MasekwamengMasterChef SA 2 7 Ingredients Whale Cottage Portfolio said that the number of ingredients related to the MasterChef SA prize of a VW Golf 7, and that  7 is a lucky number.  Chef Pete Goffe-Wood challenged the Finalists to ‘delight and surprise‘ the judges, and to serve them ‘fabulous food‘. Speaking amongst themselves, the judges feared that some of the chicken might be undercooked, but they did praise the variety of chicken dishes which they had seen prepared. Continue reading →