River Club | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

An unusually high number of new restaurants has opened or will do so in the next month or two. There have never been so many chefs leaving their employers to start their own restaurants, or to join other employers! This list of restaurant openings and closings and restaurant staff movements is updated continuously, as we receive new information:

Restaurant Openings

* Borage Bistro has opened in Portside, with Chef Frank Marks, previously of The Fat Duck, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, La Colombe, The Test Kitchen, and The Pot Luck Club

* Chef Chris Erasmus has opened his own restaurant Foliage in Franschhoek, having previously been at Pierneef à La Motte.

* Idiom Wines is said to be opening a restaurant.

* The Butcher Shop & Grill has opened next to Sotano in Mouille Point.

* Michael Townsend (La Parada, Lucky Fish, Harbour House emporium) is opening a steak restaurant in Muizenberg in November.

* Neil Grant and his business partner Barry Engelbrecht (of Burrata) are opening a new restaurant Bocca on the corner of Bree Continue reading →

Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

* The Washington Post recommends Mullineux Chenin Blanc and AA Badenhorst Secateurs as two of five good food pairing wines.

* SAA is discounting flights between Johannesburg and New York or Washington to $855 for the dates 10 – 30 November, in a promotion called ‘November to Remember’.

* The SA Vodka Festival, which was scheduled to be held at The Lookout in the V&A Waterfront from 30 October – 1 November, was cancelled a few hours before the doors were to open! No explanation has been provided to exhibitors and to the public to date.

* South Africa’s first Mzansi Latino Festival will be held at the River Continue reading →