Homework | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

Yesterday I became excited about another dimension of Cape Town – I attended the Design Indaba Expo, the first time that I have attended any aspect of the Design Indaba in its 16 year history. I am so sorry that I was not better informed about this amazing event in the local newspapers or on radio, and had it not been for Twitter I would not have known about it. I was blown away by the quality and diversity of design, by mainly Cape Town based designers, in the jam-packed Cape Town International Convention Centre exhibition hall, and must congratulate Ravi Naidoo and his Design Indaba team for the excellent organisation, and leading-edge design on display. I would urge all design-lovers in Cape Town to visit the Design Indaba Expo this weekend.

There is such an overwhelming number of exhibitors, in relatively small stands, that one blindly moves from one stand to another, trying to not miss anything in the vast hall. No exhibitor map or list is provided when one buys the ticket outside the hall, and the Design Indaba Info stand is in the centre of the hall (not visible when one enters), and I only saw it near the end of my long walk through the exhibition. Here I was able to obtain a “Visitors Guide”, which lists each of the roughly 250 exhibitors, and contains the floor plan, so that one can find the exhibitors, as well as the programme for the fashion shows and film festival, forming part of the Design Indaba programme. Designers were chosen by a panel of industry experts, the Visitors Guide explains. What I did observe is that many designers are brand new at their design businesses, and rather poor at their marketing, not having business cards and/or brochures with them, or having handed all of them out during the first day of the Expo. Pierre le Roux was one of the most interesting designers at the Expo, in my opinion, but has no business card and not even a website. Pierre described his furniture as being works of art more than functional seating. To obtain further information and contact details of all the designers, one has to buy a “Buyers Guide” at R100, which I decided to do, to use at a later stage – sadly Pierre’s details are not in the Buyers’ Guide either. This information deficiency was the only flaw in the Expo that I experienced.

Near the entrance was an impactful rainbow-coloured display to attract attention to Cape Town’s bid for Design Capital of the world in 2014. Attendees were invited to sign the base of the display, to show their support for the bid. Next to it stood a five-tier cake by Charly’s Bakery, which reflected different aspects of Cape Town. in the exhibition hall one can loosely pick up a grouping of similar designers, including furniture, fashion, jewellery, craft, interior design, product design, advertising, architecture, publishing and many more design disciplines.

The furniture exhibits probably attracted the most attention, because the exhibitors required more space, and they tended to not be confined within exhibition stand walls. I was impressed by the differentness of an outdoors chair made from pipes (left), as well as the new stainless steel tub chair from the Sofa Studio in Franschhoek. Other furniture designers at the Expo include the Western Cape Furniture Initiative, Haldane Martin, Cabinetworks, Pierre Cronje, Raw Studios, Recreate, Pedersen + Lennard, …XYZ Design, and a most cleverly named Flower Power, making lamps shaped like proteas.

The 24 jewellery stands probably were the most popular in general, attracting a lot of visitors. The work exhibited was more modern and contemporary, some quirky, very creative, some art, some organic, some romantic, and all unique and non-commercialised. The University of Stellenbosch Jewellery Design department also exhibited its students’ work. Ceramic exhibitors include Liesel Trautman, Diana Ferreira, fun Zizamele Ceramics, John Bauer, The Potter’s Workshop, Tamarillo Ceramics & Design, Clementina Ceramics, Hennie Meyer Ceramics, Imiso Ceramics, Sootcookie Ceramics, Tania Babb Ceramics and Wonki Ware. Craft exhibitors include Woodhead’s, Usisi Designs, Cupcake Country, The Cape Craft & Design Institute, Phumani Paper, Design Afrika, Monkeybiz, The Letterpress Company, Nicfredman Art and Design, Molten, The Beloved, and many more. Fashion took up a lot of exhibition space, and was popular. Exhibitors include Tjerrie, Matblac, GOOD Clothing, Coast & Koi, Spilt Milk, BlueCollarWhiteCollar, Homework, Mielie, Township Patterns, DURCHZUG, FACT, Baie Nice, Continent Africa, and MeMeMe. Lifestyle designers exhibiting are Pepper Plum Designs, Yda Walt Studio, Flick Glass, Fundi Light & Living, Carrol Boyes, Chic Revolution, Tintown, Anatomy Design, and Ikhaya. Some of the names of the designer businesses are as creative as their craft!

There are two separated design areas within the Design Indaba Expo. The first is The Salon Privé, ‘focusing on the crème de la crème of South African design. The Salon Privé is independently curated and designers are encouraged to use the platform to launch a new product or product range.’ In this space the Ardmore ceramics table attracted attention, as did the Veuve Clicquot champagne bar, where I indulged in a glass of their Rosé bubbly at R99, served in a most beautiful unusual champagne glass, nothing like I have ever seen before, without a stem. Other exhibitors are architects Haldane Martin, Johannesburg-based interior designers Tonic (which one hopes will open in Cape Town too), Willowlamp, Zenzulu, Egg Designs, Ronel Jordaan, ZENZULU, and more. Close by was a collection of small stands dedicated to “Emerging Creatives”, but it is not explained in the Visitors Guide, other than that there are 60 first-time exhibitors, under the heading “New Kids on the Block”. The Department of Trade and Industry also had a conglomerate pavilion with about ten exhibitors, including Abode Designer, Veldt designers, Zan Zan décor, Drift Furniture, Keiskamma Art, Master Wires and Deesigned Beads.

For the hungry and thirsty Expo-goers, one can buy Woolworths’ coffees and rolls, or buy sandwiches and other foods from the Earth Fair Market. Grolsch has an interestingly designed stand too. Whilst I sat down at the table to have my cappuccino, I had the most wonderful experience in reconnecting with Mark Robinson, whom I had last seen twenty years ago when we both consulted to the then Colman Foods. The lady that took his seat when he left shared a background in PR and marketing with me. This was another enriching dimension of the Expo.

Alongside the Design Indaba Expo is the update of the Cape Town Design Route, and this is an exciting longer-term manifestation of Cape Town’s design wealth, in that tourists and locals can visit more than fifty designers in the city throughout the year. The Cape Town Design Route designers are all exhibiting at the Design Indaba Expo. The updated Cape Town Design Route 2011 map was lying at the entrance to the exhibition, without one being alerted to this wonderful design highlight. I had read about the Design Route by chance last year, and this is the first time that I have seen a map for it. I was so inspired about the Cape Town Design Route at the time that I wrote a blogpost about it, and will write a new one about the Cape Town Design Route 2011.

Film and fashion events take place inside the Expo throughout the exhibition days, and the programme of events is detailed in the Visitors’ Guide. Childrens’ design and art workshops are also on the programme throughout the weekend.

Last year the Design Indaba became infamous due to the spectacle Martha Stewart made of herself as the keynote speaker at the Design Indaba Conference – this year the Design Indaba will be remembered for the most wonderful showcase of design in Cape Town!

Design Indaba Expo, Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town. Tel (021) 465-9966. www.designindaba.com. Today 10h00 – 20h00, Sunday 10h00 – 18h00.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

I have loved the Grand Café and Rooms from the time it opened in Plettenberg Bay four years ago, and I stayed in it whilst I was having the building renovated that has become my Whale Cottage Plettenberg Bay. It has had its ups and downs over this period, but seems to have lost its edge since it was taken over by new owner Sue Main, and who subsequently added the Camps Bay and Granger Bay branches in Cape Town. We were most disappointed with our last visit a week ago.

But to start at the beginning of The Grand Café and Rooms. Enterprising entrepreneur (Homework clothing) Gail Behr opened this unusual pink-painted 8-bedroom boutique hotel and restaurant in Plett. It was at the time that I travelled to Plett once a month to oversee the renovations to what was to become our newest guest house. The Grand became my home from home for a year of travelling, and I was well looked after by the friendly staff, including Steven, Sydney, Robert and Eric. The room decor is unusual, extravagant in its use of red velvet, extra-ordinarily high beds with bedside stools, and generous baths. But it was the Café part of The Grand that we loved especially, and the music collection played boldly throughout the day via an iPod compiled by Behr’s son Steven Whiteman was amazing – Mozart for breakfast, opera for late morning, light jazz during the day, Sinatra for the early evening, more jazz at night. It gave the restaurant the most wonderful atmosphere at any time of the day, and a character which I have never experienced before. To add to the charm created by the music is the Café deck, with a wonderful view over the Plett lagoon, from which one can see amazing moon rises. In early days The Grand was a meeting point of all Behr’s friends from Cape Town, Johannesburg and other corners of the world. It took a long time to meet Gail, and I was quite intimated by her initially, given quite a stern sounding set of house rules. But she was much nicer than the rules made her sound when we did finally meet.

All good things come to an end, and Behr decided to move into the hotel, and only use the top four rooms for guests, and she lived downstairs. The Café was no longer open to the public, falling into Behr’s private space, and guests were served a very restricted breakfast relative to what we were used to, in a non-view courtyard. The building was painted white, and it lost its charm. Then The Grand Café and Rooms was sold to Main, who built on the success of this brand to open first in Camps Bay (buying the building for about R40 million), and then The Grand on the Beach a year ago. It was odd to see The Grand crockery in other restaurants, such as Nguni, before it was sold to Main. One welcome change Main made was to have the building repainted its landmark pinky colour. Admirably she changed little about the decor, which also reflects Behr’s initial lush red velvet look. Main even used Adam Whiteman, another Behr son, who is an interior decorator, to decorate the Camps Bay restaurant.

One comfortable thing about The Grand Café is that its menu has not changed much over the four years, and that the prices seem to have largely remained the same too. The first problem we encountered with the nice branded maroon menu folder is that the starter and main course/dessert pages were swopped around in it. The menu does not resemble the A3 “newspaper” feel of those in the Cape Town restaurants. Our order was taken, before we were asked if we had been told about the specials by Sybil, who seemed to be in charge and who has been at The Grand from the time it opened. She sent another waiter, but he too struggled to tell us the specials, which will be on the new menu introduced this week, but that had been available to order for the past week already. Before we could not even reconsider our order, given the specials, our food was served!

The tempura prawn starter (R70) is absolutely mouthwatering, and is a signature dish. None of the other The Grand branches can prepare it like the Plett branch can, Camps Bay using shrimps which just do not match the wonderful Plett prawns. The slice of Caesar has also been a standard, costing R60 for the iceberg served with bacon, croutons and parmesan, and R80 with chicken added. The Waldorf salad costs R 55; tuna (R45) and vegetable (R35) spring rolls; salmon naan (R 75); and calamari rings cost R40 as a starter and R65 as a main. One of the problems with a menu is that restaurants take them away when one has placed the order. Only when leaving did I recheck the menu, and realise that our served calamari (crumbed calamari tubes) were not as described on the menu at all – they were not “tender” nor “rings”! Mussels and chips cost R 75, a prego roll R60/R65 for beef chicken/beef fillet. There are only five main courses, including fish and chips (R70); line fish (R95); fillet “Bernaise” (R115); and Durban lamb curry (R115), which my colleagues ordered, with super poppadoms, basmati rice and sambals of yoghurt, bananas, tomato and cucumber, and chutney. Desserts have not changed in five years, being Afagato (R35), Phina Afagato (R45), and Cake of the day (R34).

The new menu was e-mailed to me, and a new addition is pizzas, ranging in price from R70 for the Grand “Margerita” to the blockbuster Grand Seafood Pizza at R220! Sugared Salmon (R100), an old standard, is back. Oysters and cold crayfish (both SQ) have been added as starters.

The winelist has a small selection of wines per variety, but vintages are not specified. The (unspecified) house wines are offered in white, Rosé, red, sparkling, and sparkling Rosé, ranging from R35 per glass/R195 per bottle. Suzette Champagne costs R150 for 375 ml. Sparkling wines cost R 220 for Steenberg 1682, “Pierre Jordaan (sic) Belle Rose NV” R275, and Bramon Brut R265, a local Plettenberg Bay bubbly. Billecart-Salmon Rose costs R900, Moet & Chandon R800 and Dom Perignon R 2800. Sauvignon Blancs range from R95 for Glenwood, to R180 for Springfield Life from Stone. Kevin Arnold Shiraz costs R340.

The Grand Café bubble has burst in Plettenberg Bay. While it is commendable to see it still operating, given how depressed Plettenberg Bay is, the service was shocking, a regular complaint about The Grand on the Beach, but for all the wrong reasons – there were only three of four tables eating in total, and both waiters were very new and poorly trained, and one of them came with attitude too. Our calamari served was completely different to what the menu described. The trademark magical music is gone. Sadly, The Grand Café in Plettenberg Bay is no longer grand!

The Grand Café and Rooms, 27 Main Road, Plettenberg Bay. Tel (044) 533-3301. www.thegrand.co.za (the website is minimalist, quite contrary to the lush interiors, and is shared across the three Grand restaurants. Surprisingly, no menu, winelist, nor any food photographs are in the Gallery of any of the three website sections). Open for lunch and dinner Monday – Sunday for the season.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com