Tag Archives: gåte

A Women’s Day salute to Women Restaurant Owners and Top Chefs in Cape Town and the Winelands, sadly only a handful!

 

Since having created a Facebook Group for Food Delivery and Collection during Lockdown, I have become aware of women restaurant owners, something I had never written about or even thought about, only being aware of female chefs in our part of the world. For Women’s Day I planned this article, to profile the female restaurant owners in Cape Town and the Winelands, sadly only finding a small handful of 12.

I have also compiled a list of the Top 13 women Head/Executive Chefs in Cape Town and the Winelands.

Continue reading →

Restaurant Review: New Exhibit A Fine-dining restaurant serves fine fun food, but service does not match cuisine quality!

I have experienced the cuisine creativity and presentation of Chefs Rikku O’Donnchü and Warwick King three times at Gåte when they opened at Quoin Rock wine estate outside Stellenbosch a year ago, and three times since they established their own SŸN Group since leaving Gåte, first as a SŸN Pop-up, and then as their brand new Exhibit A, in the past year, In this period I have seen the growth in this creative chef team, challenging itself continuously to do things differently and to break their own boundaries. Continue reading →

Little-known hospitality consultancy Hospitality Counsel announces Top 10 Chefs and Restaurants 2019!

It was a Facebook post by Chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen of South African/French restaurant JAN in Nice that alerted me to the Hospitality Counsel 2019 ranking of our countries top ten Restaurants as well as Chefs, when he thanked them for being included in the Top 10 Chef List. No other restaurant or chef on the two lists appears to have announced the accolades from the Hospitality Counsel, awarded at an event called the 2019 Luxury Tourism Awards! Continue reading →

New Restaurant openings in Cape Town and Winelands for 2019/2020 season slow down dramatically: October 2019!

The poor economic conditions in our country currently is manifesting in the very few new restaurants opening for the new summer season, most such new openings usually taking place in September. Where many new restaurants are opening, they are changing the name and concept of existing ones, rather than being brand new, or adding other restaurants in a restaurant group’s portfolio. 

Two exciting top-end restaurant openings are those of Exhibit A (owned by highly acclaimed Chef Rikku O’Donnchü and Chef Warwick King, who left Gåte restaurant earlier this year), opening in the city centre on 1 November; and of La Chêne at Leeu Estates in Franschhoek. Interesting is that a number of new restaurants have opened on Kloof Street, our former Cape Town Restaurant Street before Bree Street took over,  Continue reading →