While some restaurants have closed down or remain closed until October, there are exciting plans for new restaurant openings and take-overs I learnt in Franschhoek yesterday. While the La Colombe Group has a strong presence in the village with three restaurants, it is about to be overtaken by Chef Darren Badenhorst, who will own four restaurants by the end of this year, and will be running two further ones too! Continue reading →
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 →
Yesterday I went to visit Chef Arno Janse van Rensburg of Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant The Kitchen at Maison, to hear more about his new restaurant Janse & Co he plans to open on Kloof Street in Cape Town in December. We stayed for lunch, and enjoyed Chef Arno’s three-ingredient focus of his dishes. Continue reading →
The Leeu Collection is on an acquisition trail, and appears unstoppable in expanding its hospitality portfolio, in not only acquiring restaurants and accommodation establishments locally, but hotels in Europe, their U.K.-based Linthwaite House acquired last year being followed up by a new purchase in Florence, the former Collegio Alla Querce. Continue reading →