Tag Archives: Sassi

Restaurant Review: not all fishy at SeaFood at The Plettenberg!

Seafood at The Plettenberg View ocean Whale CottageOne of the better restaurants in Plettenberg Bay (there aren’t many, and two favorites The Grand and Nguni are currently closed for winter breaks) has been Sand at The Plettenberg.  Two years ago the restaurant changed its name to SeaFood at The Plettenberg, in line with a similar restaurant at sister hotel The Marine in Hermanus, and last year new Executive Chef Grant Parker took over the kitchen when the hotel re-opened after a long winter break.  The setting and selection of mainly seafood dishes was perfect on a beautiful day.

I had been assisted in the foyer of the hotel by Guest Relations Manager Laula, who did everything, including serving me in the restaurant.  She is a very new staff member, but was willing to find information for the questions which she could not answer.  She sent Annemie Parker, the General Manager and wife of the chef, wearing her Relais & Chateaux pin, to explain the changes in the branding of the restaurant. Little about the restaurant interior has changed since she took over in running the hotel a year ago, coming from Seafood at The Plettenberg Interior restaurant Whale CottageCybele Lodge, except for two panels of photographs with Southern Right whales, but hard to identify as such, with the way the light falls on the glass panels over them. Annemie said that McGrath Hotels Group Executive Chef Peter Tempelhoff comes to visit every two months or so.  She said that Chef Grant devised most of the dishes on the new restaurant menu, with guidance from Chef Peter, but with a section of The Collection signature dishes, which are served in all three the McGrath hotel restaurants, including The Conservatory at the Cellars-Hohenhort in Constantia.   With the change in restaurant name,  the style of the restaurant to that of a Bistro was also changed, away from fine-dining. Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 6 June

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Michelin star Chef Heston Blumenthal’s The Perfectionists Café has opened at the new Heathrow Terminal 2, serving burgers, fish and chips, and pizzas prepared in the first ever wood-burning oven in an airport, as well as molecular liquid nitrogen ice cream.

*   American travellers are booking last-minute, something that became a habit in 2008 during the economic crisis, but has remained and is now a booking trend, despite the recession being something of the past.

*   Tourists often are better informed about the tourism attractions and highlights of a city than are the local residents of the city, given their ability to use technology to garner information about and make bookings for the destination that they are visiting.  Nick Hall, Head of the Digital Tourism Think Tank, says: ‘So, what we have witnessed so far will accelerate. We can expect far more change, far faster. In this light the rise of mobile technologies is poised to change the industry as much as it has already. Visitors will be innately digital. They will be hyper-informed and seamlessly connected throughout their travel. The challenge this poses to existing tourist businesses is immense, as is the opportunity it holds out‘.  While technology is important, tourists still want the ‘reality of the experience, not the virtual reality’.

*   Three Ships Premium Select 5 Year Old won gold at the 2014 International Spirits Challenge in London.  The whisky is blended Continue reading →

Culinary trends: 20 years past, looking into the future!

Ferran Adria Culinary Conclave Ryan KingLooking at the past 20 year’s of our country’s democracy yesterday, I chose an article written about a recent ‘Culinary Conclave’ (or Indaba or Kosberaad, as we would call it) held by one of the world’s greatest chefs, Ferran Adrià of the former El Bulli, for inspiration for today’s blogpost.

Adrià and fellow chef Andoni Luis Aduriz invited 15 ‘gastronomic journalists‘ from around the world (none from our country) for a two day discussion about the past 20 years of gastronomy.  Each attendee was requested to present the gastronomic trends over the past two decades in their country, the impact of gastronomyFerran Adria Culinary Conclave group Ryan King original_ferran-conclave-group on society and culture, how the media has changed and influenced gastronomy, and how the definitions of ‘great cuisine‘ and ‘dining experience‘ have changed.

These were some of the gastronomic trends identified: Continue reading →