Tag Archives: Richard Griffin

Restaurant Review: Cafe Mozart is Cape cool!

I have the highest admiration for Richard Griffin, who must be one of the most creative restaurateurs in Cape Town as far as restaurant ‘theatre’ goes.  Café Mozart has been a Cape Town institution on Church Street, in the section that is a pedestrian mall between Long and Burg Streets, in the antique center of the city, and is one of the latest additions to the Griffin restaurant collection.   It is a friendly inexpensive pitstop for locals working close by and for shoppers, given the shortage of parking in the area.  Unfortunately, there is no Mozart at Café Mozart!

You cannot miss Griffin’s new improved Café Mozart when walking down the lane – it has a little wooden fence around the outside seating area, decorated with lots of plastic flowers, attracting one to the restaurant.   In a corner there are a number of wacky ‘cakes’ decorated in a floral hat theme.  Looking lost is a wire and beaded goat (I saw a similar one at The Sidewalk Café), which is the inspiration for a Facebook competition which Griffin is running across all his restaurants.  Black table cloths are covered with thick red velvet cloths and lace overlays.   Centre point is a wonderful tree giving shade to the restaurant area, making it perfectly cool for  a hot Cape summer’s day.  The restaurant interior is tiny, although there is an upstairs seating section.  The open-plan kitchen is visible as one enters the restaurant, the new counter having changed position since Griffin took over the restaurant in September.  In the window is a lovely display of cupcakes and other treats.  Plates decorate the walls of the interior.  Cutlery and paper serviettes are brought to the table in a mini-champagne bucket.  Beggars coming to the table is off-putting, and spoil the magic.

I drink a lot of water, and loved the water which was poured from a jug with lemon slices, mint and nectarines, a refreshing summer drink.  The wine list is short and sweet, with only 13 wines.  A Mozart House wine is inexpensive at R22/R90 for the white and red wines, vintage, variety and origin unspecified.  Jordan Chardonnay costs R165, De Grendel Rosé R22/R90, Simonsig Shiraz R105, and Warwick’s First Lady R135. 

The menu is dedicated to Griffin’s parents Jean and Malcolm Griffin.  It is an unassuming photocopied A4 page, cleverly folded to separate the food items from the beverages.  The menu introduces the restaurant as follows: “Nestled in the heart of the Cape Town CBD, Café Mozart is a renowned landmark which has been charming both locals and visitors alike for just under 30 years.  This beautiful historical building has been witness to the growth and evolution of the Mother City and has been home to many a business, including a locksmith in 1939, one of the first recorded enterprises on this site”.  

Breakfast is served until a generous midday, and eleven options are offered, from the predictable muesli, fruit and yoghurt (R30); French Toast (R32); and omelette (R35); to such unusual items as “Cumberland bangers, eggs, baked beans and toast (R35);  Eggs Royale with smoked salmon (R48); and The Full Mozart (R48).   Gourmet sandwiches are served on a choice of ciabatta, wholeseed molasses, and German rye, with a side salad.  They range from R35 for brie, to R45 for an interesting sounding Bobotie sandwich!  Plain “Toasted Governments” are available in nine variations, reasonably priced from R26 – R31, which includes a salad.  Salads can also be ordered from a “chef’s salad table” on weekdays, costing R40 per plateful.   Fifteen lunch dishes are offered, quite a mixed bunch including further salads (R35 – R45), mussels (45), Bobotie (R65), a Mozart Royale burger (R45), sirloin (R85), and a delicious Chicken Schnitzel, three pieces served with linguine are excellent value at R65.  

Peta Synn is the Manager, and has come a long way with Griffin, since 2006.  She is very friendly, and eager to help.   Griffin first attracted attention when he opened Madame Zingara in 2001, the first time a Cape Town restaurant had seen “foodtainment”, with belly dancers and jugglers wandering through the Loop Street restaurant.  An overnight fire in 2006 closed down the restaurant, but became the inspiration for the new Madame Zingara Theatre of Dreams, which Griffin set up underneath the highway outside the harbour, and put on the most amazing circus-type entertainment whilst serving hundreds of patrons in the middle of nowhere.  It became the talk of the town, and of the country, to such an extent that a backer attracted him to open in London, unfortunately just as the recession started biting, and the backer withdrew, leaving Griffin and his team high and dry, forcing him to close both the London and the local operation two years ago.   A Cape Town backer couple supported him to get him back onto his feet, to help him reappear on the restaurant scene with the opening of the Bombay Bicycle Club, at the top of Kloof Street.  Then came The Sidewalk Café in Vredehoek, Café Mozart, and his most recent conquest is Café Paradiso on Kloof Street, which has just re-opened under his direction.   Alongside this, he resurrected Madame Zingara earlier this year, this time located at Century City, and now touring the country.

Café Mozart is hard to get to if one is reliant on parking close by, but if one is in town, it is well worth making a stop, sitting under the Café Mozart tree to catch some Cape cool, whilst watching the hustle and bustle of the city pass by. 

Café Mozart,  37 Church Street, Cape Town.  Tel (021) 424-3774. www.themozart.co.za.  Monday – Friday 7h00 – 17h00, Saturday 8h00 – 15h00. 

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Madame Zingara to re-open Theatre of Dreams

Well-known Madame Zingara, a theatre restaurant which captured the imagination of Capetonians over the past 10 years, before it closed due to the recession early last year, is set to re-open next month, reports the Weekend Argus.

Owner Richard Griffin is a star showmaster and was a highly successful restaurateur, until his original restaurant on Loop Street burnt down.  He set up his Theatre of Dreams vaudeville supper club underneath the highway near the Cape Town harbour, and moved the show to London due to its success.  Here a backer dropped him, and Griffin’s company was liquidated.   He has been back in operation “undercover” as the operator of the Bombay Bicycle Club at the top of Kloof Street.

According to the report, Griffin said: “We have taken our time in hiatus to develop some truly breathtaking new acts. Everything will be bigger, better, more dramatic.   We’ve let our imagination run wild and come up with some acts that I haven’t seen or heard of anywhere else in the wrold”.

Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams is set to be located at Century City, according to the report, and her ‘2010 Love Magic Tour’ will commence in Cape Town, and thereafter will tour to Durban and Johannesburg.

It will be interesting to see how the re-opening of Madame Zingara will affect Vaudeville, if at all, as most of Madame Zingara’s waitering staff as well as performing stars went to Vaudeville when  it opened in Cape Town late last year.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Get on your bicycle to Bombay Bicycle Club

If one did not know differently, one could have sworn that one had travelled back in time a number of years to Loop Street, the first home of Madame Zingara, where “food showman” Richard Griffin ran a most successful restaurant until a fire forced him to reinvent his business, and the Madame Zingara Theatre of Dreams was born.   It was liquidated earlier this year, after the business expanded to London, and was caught short by the credit crunch.

Bombay Bicycle Club is a “reincarnated” Madame Zingara, located at the top of Kloof Street, opposite Bacini’s and in the building that was previously Amigo’s.  It is spread over three levels and eclectically decorated with bicycles, umbrellas, candles and plastic flowers, to create a lovely atmosphere.   Tables are close to each other, probably seating about 60 customers inside.   Our table was downstairs, and we were in the restaurant on a 29 C day.  It was very hot downstairs, but the staff quickly helped us by opening the windows, to let in a lovely breeze.    The seats facing the windows have a disadvantage, in that one is regularly blinded by oncoming traffic at the stop street across the road.   Flimsy curtains helped a little when they were closed for us.

We asked our waiter Johan who the owners were, but he did not know their names.   It was confirmed that Richard Griffin is in the background, and that all his staff, except newcomer Johan, are from Madame Zingara.    A belly dancer did the rounds during the course of the evening, another Madame Zingara touch.  The music is wonderful and builds up throughout the evening, a mix of music from the eighties and beyond.  

The candlelight makes it difficult to read the menu, printed on a dark violet.   It devotes two pages to the background to the restaurant, but all is tongue-in-cheek, and nothing makes any sense nor tells one anything about the restaurant or its owners.  It describes the Bombay Bicycle Club as “the oldest gentlemen’s club in the world”, and the only serious message it has is “Please enjoy getting back on a bike as much as we have”, perhaps a lesson that Griffin has learnt, having gone though a liquidation.

The wine glasses are cheap and nasty, one size suits all for white and red wine.   The wine prices are very reasonable, at R 175 for the Hartenberg Cabernet Sauvignon, being the most expensive red wine, and the Footprint Shiraz the least expensive at R85.   The Groote Post Shiraz was out of stock, not acceptable for a very restricted winelist.  Luckily the Warwick’s Three Cape Ladies was a 2005, the other red wines tending to be very young.  The white wine prices ranged from R 75 for the Footprint Sauvignon Blanc to R 165 for the Jordan Chardonnay.   

The starters range in price from R 35 for a Zuppa to R 49 for Kataifa Prawns.   The pear, cashew nut and brie salad had an unusual mix of ingredients, and was a generous portion, enough to share amongst our table of four.   Ten pasta choices are offered, the Salmone Mate’ being the most expensive at R 60.  Main courses range from R 65 for a roast vegetable bake, to R 115 for a fillet.   Our table had the bobotie, springbok shank, lamb tagine, and balsamic chicken, all served with vegetables and potatoes or sweet potatoes, and the portions once again were generous, therefore offering good value, given the reasonable prices. Each one of us was happy with our choices.

We were warned that the dessert portions were equally generous, and they were.   The Terciopelo Chocolate, Bombay Cigars and Pavlova were huge, and were equally enjoyable.  Desserts cost about R 35.

The criticism of the restaurant on restaurant review pages has been its smokiness (there was none, probably as smoking has been banned in the upstairs section due to the tougher anti-smoking by-law introduced recently, its poor service (Johan looked after us excellently), and its loud noise are completely unfounded.   We had a wonderful evening, and were filled with Madame Zingara nostalgia.   We will definitely go back.

The cost of a bottle of red wine, 2 beers, one salad, four main courses and three desserts was R 705 for a table of four. 

Bombay Bicycle Club, 158 Kloof Street, Gardens.  Tel 021 423-6805.  Expect to have to book a few weeks in advance, especially over weekends, due to the popularity of this restaurant. 

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

Madame Zingara : RIP

Madame Zingara is dead!   The ‘Theatre of Dreams’ circus theatre restaurant, which was created as a result of a fire in the original Madame Zingara premises in Loop Street in Cape Town, went into final liquidation yesterday.

Madame Zingara owner and “ringmaster, Richard Griffin, appears to have over-extended himself, in taking his Madame Zingara to London in December, at the same time that he opened Mojolena, a sister theatre restaurant, but on a much smaller scale, in Cape Town, so that he could continue employing the staff that could not get visas to go to the UK.   His backers in the UK pulled out due to the credit crunch, while unpaid debts in Cape Town led to the liquidation.

Whilst Madame Zingara opened to sold-out nights at the Battersea Power Station in London in December, it was a fantastic “advertisement” for South African creativity, and the culinary and cultural marriage.    However, the marketing damage of the closure in London is bad for the country, as the Time Out website, which had featured a very favourable review, is filled with comments from persons who had booked and paid for the dinner and show, but who do not appear to be able to receive their money back.   Griffin’s South African origin is mentioned in the comments.

Griffin also has unpleasant culpable homicide and attempted murder charges hanging over his head, resulting from an accident in 2006, in which a pedestrian died and another was injured, with Griffin allegedly driving into them, reports the Cape Argus.