Winter is on our doorstep, autumn making itself felt already. Traditionally winter commences at Easter, giving the restaurant industry just three weeks to make its last bucks. The only new restaurant that I have heard open is Botanicum Café & Grill in Constantia, previously Bootlegger Café & Grill, now (silently) 50% owned by Bootlegger, as the concept was not working with the Bootlegger name, it being seen as a coffee shop and not a stand-alone restaurant.
Restaurant openings Continue reading →
Restaurant history was made in this country yesterday, when a restaurant ban by Chef Peter Tempelhoff of the newly opened FYN Festaurant, instituted against me two days before the opening of the restaurant just over two weeks ago, was uplifted, in a settlement in which I agreed to make two changes to the Blogpost in which I shared the initial restaurant banning with my Blog readers. The restaurant ban contradicted a welcome to eat at the new restaurant, and a policy of patron non-discrimination, expressed to me by Chef Peter at the Eat Out Awards 2018 just ten days earlier. 
Yesterday I received a letter from the lawyers of Chef Peter Tempelhoff of newly opened FYN Restaurant, reacting with threat and intimidation to my Blogpost dated 28 November, about being banned from his restaurant, which opened on 30 November. Some speculate that the banning is a cheap publicity shot by Tempelhoff, to fill his 40-seater restaurant, and that the lawyer’s letter is a follow-up to his marketing strategy, to attract further attention to the restaurant. 
Late last night I received an email from Chef Peter Tempelhoff, announcing that he is banning me from eating at his new FYN Restaurant. This is a reversal to what Tempelhoff told me at the Eat Out Awards ten days ago, in that I was welcome to eat at FYN, and that he does not discriminate against anyone, when I asked him directly! It can only signal that Tempelhoff is petrified that I might judge his new fine-dining restaurant, opening on Friday, to not be good enough!