Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and the Michelin Guide has paid tribute to the Top 16 Women Chefs in the world which own and head up the kitchens of one-, two-, and three-star Michelin Restaurants.
It is also a good opportunity to pay a final tribute to our country’s only Top 10 Chef Chantel Dartnall, who is soon to close down her Restaurant Mosaic outside Pretoria.
Women Chefs have always been in the minority in general, but also at the top echelon of restaurant ownership.
South Africa is two months into Lockdown, 62 days of restaurants not being allowed to open to serve sit-down customers. For the past 27 days many restaurants have reopened, operating within the Government regulation of offering a Food preparation and Delivery Service. On the eve of Restaurants being allowed to offer a Delivery as well as a Customer Collection Service from Monday 1 June, I looked at what the 2019 Eat Out Top 10 Restaurants are doing currently in terms of keeping their Restaurant brand names visible, and generating income to cover their costs and to employ some of their staff again.
I found that only three of the Eat Out Top 10 Restaurants are trading under their restaurant name in offering a Lockdown Food Delivery Service, and offering dishes that are similar to those that they offer at their award-winning restaurants. Continue reading →
Chef Chantel Dartnall of Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient outside Pretoria Facebooked her good news of making the 2020 Top 200 in the La Liste ranking of the 1000 top-mentioned restaurants in the world. Her restaurant was ranked around number 110 on this list, the joint highest ranked South African restaurant with The Yest Kitchen with a score of 94%. Four top restaurants, two of them from Tokyo, shared the number one ranking this year. Continue reading →
I cannot remember when an Eat Out Awards event was so exciting in its Top 10 countdown, with so many surprise restaurants on this year’s list, reflecting how more daring the Eat Out judging team has become, no longer playing it safe, which is highly commended. Since Chef Margot Janse took over in heading the Eat Out Awards judging panel in 2018, she has been ruthless in her restaurant recognition, which we already noticed when Eat Out announced its Top 30 nomination shortlist for this year, in some of the top restaurants it excluded! Continue reading →