My friend Tony Ward and I went to try the month-old Giulio’s Italian restaurant on Loop Street yesterday, and we were charmed by the down-to-earth friendliness from mother and son owners Giulio and Franca Loreggian.
I noticed the use of the olive branch and wreaths to bring Italy into the restaurant, given the Loreggian’s Italian descent. We were lucky Continue reading →
On Thursday I was invited to the opening of the Kamers food and design pop-up event, which is being held inside and outside the extensive The Castle, an apt venue as The Castle of Good Hope was home to the market in Cape Town in early days.
Kamers started off in Stellenbosch twelve years ago when a collection of friends organised it as Kamers vol Geskenke, and its timing was close to Christmas, allowing one to buy unusual, unique, and stylish presents to give as gifts. At that time they started with 40 stands, now they have 140, chosen out of a list of 600 applicants, we were told by the founder of the event, Wanda du Toit. Her official title is Creative Director. Other members of the organising team include Magdel Kemp, Amelia van Zyl, and Hesta du Plessis. Kamers has never been held in Cape Town, so hosting it in the city as well as in The Castle is a double historic event. Now Kamers is spread over four events throughout the year, in Stellenbosch, Pretoria, and for the first time in Johannesburg and Cape Town this year. It is organised by a team of twelve, and no one ever leaves, said Wanda. Unique to the Cape Town event is the collaboration with the Cape Craft & Design Initiative (CCDI), a collective of 5000 small design and craft enterprises, which are offered business and marketing support to assist them in growing their businesses, to help them grow, and to enable them to employ staff, said Erica Elk, its Executive Director. World Design Capital 2014 has endorsed Kamers.
On arrival at The Castle, we were guided to park furthest from The Castle building, and fill up the space in this way, not making sense at all, the latecomers being lucky enough to park closest to The Castle building! It was difficult to find the venue for the media launch, a number of us entering the building housing the William Fehr Collection. An Iziko Museums staff member was unfriendly in pointing us generally down a passage with her walkie-talkie, without explanation. 
She had no clue about Kamers taking place on the property, or where the media function was, and fortunately a colleague could guide us to a completely different building. In the launch address Wanda hinted at some of the issues they had in using The Castle buildings, being a Military-owned property with rules and regulations, which created some challenges for the organisers, but these were not visible to us, other than the attitude of the Iziko staff and the parking ‘organisation’. I fed back the problem with the Iziko Museums staff to Calvyn Gilfellan, the CEO of The Castle, who told me immediately that the Iziko Continue reading →
One of my favourite Saturday markets in Cape Town is the Palms Market, which has a special collection of more than 40 stall holders offering quality products, under the guidance of Isabella Niehaus, who conceptualised the market to attract more feet into the decor outlets in the Palms Lifestyle and Decor Centre. Yesterday the market celebrated its second anniversary with a ‘Reis met Rys‘ Cook-Off between five well-known chefs, creating dishes with Spekko rice.
In a two hour preparation period, Sarie food editor Herman Lensing, Kokkedoor finalist Marinda Engelbrecht, Slippery Spoon pop-up restaurateur Johnny Hamman, blogger and Radio Sonder Grense Kuberkok Nina Timm, Expresso Show cook and presenter Zola Nene, and My Basaar restaurant owner and Dagbreek TV show presenter Bernice van der Merwe created a diverse variety of rice dishes. They had been given the rice and a bottle of Hermanuspietersfontein wine, and groceries to the value of R75 to prepare their dishes. For us as judges there were few rules, other than to find the winner, which we did by scoring each dish out of ten. My fellow judges were Pieter Arno du Toit from Cederberg Wines, Ingrid Jones from Mango’s Juice magazine, presenter Eloise Pretorius from Smile FM, and Landbouweekblad Food editor Arina du Plessis.
The live cooking attracted a lot of interest and attention from the Palms Market shoppers, peering Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Chef Heston Blumenthal has temporarily closed his Michelin 2 star Dinner restaurant in London due to an outbreak of the norovirus, which affected 24 patrons and 21 staff. It follows the closure of his The Fat Duck restaurant five years ago for the same reason!
* Despite making a close to R1 billion loss in the latest financial year, SAA has bid to take a share in Senegal Airlines, which is facing bankruptcy!
* Facebook is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, and is a lucrative communication platform for tourism. The official Australia page has attracted 5,5 million ‘Likers’, while Love Great Britain has 2 million ‘Likers’.
* Wines of South Africa (WOSA) is celebrating the 2oth anniversary of our country’s democracy by means of a series of videos showcasing how the political transformation has touched people in the wine industry. A new video will be released on the WOSA website weekly, for a six week period. ‘From fifth-generation labourer to co-owner of a major farming venture, from refugee to nurseryman, from scholarship student to renowned winemaker and role model, from drug-addled gangster to farrier, each of the intimate stories in WOSA’s The Democracy Series movingly charts a journey of progress‘, states the media release. Each video ends with a quotation by the late Nelson Mandela. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)
* Bubbly Isabella Niehaus is celebrating the two year anniversary of the Palms Market at the PalmsDecor & Lifestyle Centre with a ‘Spectacular Cook-Out with Spekko Rice‘ on Saturday 15 February. Six top foodies will have their cooking challenge (the dishes have to include Hermanuspietersfontein wine and 1 Continue reading →