Yesterday I visited two coffee shops created by MasterChef Season 3 Finalists in Morningside in Durban, demonstrating how good the amateur chef competition has been in stimulating entrepreneurs to open businesses.
Spoonful Eatery
It was a delight to meet Roxi Wardman, winner of MasterChef SA Season 3, who opened her Spoonful Eatery inside Anthology shop in Continue reading →
Last night I attended an interesting group discussion about chocolate, and Honest Chocolate in particular, at their Honest Chocolate Café on Wale Street. It demonstrated that the brand of artisanal chocolate has evolved in the four years since its launch, and that it cares enough to conduct market research to establish what chocolate lovers like and dislike about the brand.
Having received the invitation to attend whilst on holiday, I had not picked up that the event would be more than a chocolate and wine pairing. We had to document our demographic details, our chocolate purchasing habits, and source of information about the brand. Our Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* South African wines won more than 300 medals at the 2015 International Wine Challenge held in London, which included 28 Gold (double the number compared to last year), 111 Silver, and 175 Bronze medals. The organisers said that South African white wines had ‘an outstanding year‘, while Shiraz was the top SA Red wine performer. Stellenbosch wines won the most SA Gold Awards.
* The 2015 Bollinger Wine Exceptional Service Award is now open for entries, which must be in by 31 May. The first Continue reading →
I sat next to The Reciprocal Wine Trading Company Cape Town representative Tarryn Thomas at the ‘Chefs who Share‘ Gala Dinner last week, and she invited me to attend the special tasting of wines in the Riedel glassware which they represent in South Africa. The tasting on Tuesday at The Local Grill function venue was made more special in that it was led by 10th generation Georg Riedel, currently heading up the Austrian-based company. Herr Riedel encouraged the restaurant managers and sommeliers present to invest in glassware and a glass washing machine to bring out the best in the wines they serve.
We were welcomed by Michael Fridjhon, owner of Reciprocal, and he introduced Herr Riedel. It was the first time that I met Michael, and sat next to him during 
the tasting. I had brought my glass of water into the venue, and was quickly told to put it away, and we were all told that we should not open the bottle of water on the tasting sheet nor taste anything before we were given the go-ahead by Herr Riedel to do so.
Herr Riedel led us to question what makes a restaurant visit successful, the welcome, the food, and the wine selection combined making the cost seem good value or not. Eating at a restaurant is a ‘multi-layered symphony’, he said, to describe the functional and emotional experience of eating out. He feels that wine Continue reading →