Chef Charné Sampson is one of the youngest 2021 Top 10 Women Chefs, and heads up the kitchen at Epice at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek. She wins a bottle of Adhara Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I was unable to meet her as she was ill on Sunday, when I delivered her prize.
Chef Charné graduated from Silwood in 2016. She did her internship at Myoga, Woolworths, Waterkloof, The Test Kitchen, and at La Colombe. She stayed on at La Colombe, until 2019, when she was given the opportunity to head up Epice.
Epice is one of a number of restaurants in the La Colombo restaurant group. Chef Charné took the restaurant to Best New Restaurant in Africa in the inaugural World Culinary Awards. Epice is a fine dining restaurant, its dishes flavour-filled with spices.
At the 2016 Eat Out Awards, held yesterday in the Arena of GrandWest over a Gala Lunch prepared by some of our country’s top chefs, some winners were predictable, and others were a surprise. It was a slick event with a Garden theme, which led many to predict that La Colombe would be the Restaurant of the Year, given its Forest menu theme. Sadly it was not, The Test Kitchen (controversially) named Restaurant of the Year for the fifth time! Nine out of the Top 10 restaurants are from Cape Town and the Winelands (Cape Town 3, Franschhoek 3, Somerset West 2, Stellenbosch 1, and Gauteng 1) 
The Village Tart is Franschhoek’s newest restaurant, having opened two months ago on the main road, where the Pancake place used to be. It is a friendly restaurant, offering the best baking in Franschhoek, but serves lunches and breakfasts too.