This weekend my resignation from Zest in July has made news in the Restaurant industry.
To date I have not written about how disrespectfully I was treated by Zest, hoping that some degree of decency would prevail by its so-called ‘owner and operator’ Chef Pavel Dimitrov. I referred the matter to the CCMA, as I have not been paid outstanding compensation, and in the proceedings I was treated with the utmost disrespect by the labour relations consultancy representing Zest.
I have decided that the time is right to tell my story, and that of abused Zest staff too!
I saw an article by Post & Courier recently, randomly as I do not follow this publication, and was attracted to its topic, being the impact of restaurant reviews and their power to close a restaurant down. Being our country’s harshest restaurant reviewer, this got me thinking about why the top chefs in our country, including Giorgio Nava, Bertus Basson, Peter Tempelhoff, Liam Tomlin, and Scott Kirton & Co are so sensitive to constructive criticism by banning (or attempting to) me from their restaurants, yet new (to our country) chef Wunderkind Rikku O’Donnchü of Gåte Restaurant welcomes it so! 
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.