Tag Archives: The Showroom

More restaurant ups and downs

Another fatality of the credit crunch is the closure of coffee shop Donatella’s in the V & A Waterfront, which belonged to Ian Halfon, owner of the St. Elmo’s pizza chain, and of the Balthazar and Balducci restaurants in the Waterfront.   It closed overnight last week.

Recently Madame Zingara, The Showroom, Summerville, Cafe Delmar and Wangthai in Camps Bay, 48 on Hout, and Riboville closed down.

Selected outlets of Melissa, The Dros, Cattle Baron, Cape Town Fish Market,  Wangthai, Sundance Cafe’s, and St. Elmo’s have closed down recently, reports the Weekend Argus.                                                                  

Good news is that ex-Showroom owner Bruce Robertson has opened The Quarter in Long Street, in the same building as the New Space Theatre, and two doors away from The Showroom Cafe, which also belongs to Robertson.

The three Vida e Caffe coffee shops that recently closed on Greenmarket Square, in St George’s Mall and in the Bayside Mall, have re-opened, now belonging directly to the franchisor, and no longer to the franchisee.

Auctioneer Rael Levitt of the Alliance Group and City Partnership CEO Andrew Borraine warn of further tough times ahead, and say that this will affect the restaurant trade, in that there are too many new restaurants combined with a cut back by patrons eating out at restaurants.

Credit crunch bites restaurants

It started with Madame Zingara, which closed two months ago.   Then came two branches of Carlucci, in Bantry Bay and in Rondebosch, which closed shortly thereafter.

Earlier this month three Vida e Caffe branches closed down in the city centre and in the Bayside Mall, and the Melissa’s in Green Point has also closed.

This week has seen a restaurant bloodbath, with the sad news that The Showroom of chef Bruce Robertson, Riboville in the city centre, and Summerville in Camps Bay have closed down.   Camps Bay has already seen the closure of Cafe Delmar and Wangthai in the past few weeks.   Two further restaurants are rumoured to be following suit.

The one thing that the closures of the larger restaurants have in common is the crippling rentals that they have to pay to greedy landlords.  The landlords should recognise the value that the restaurants have to tourism, and that they should come to the party in keeping the rentals reasonable, to ensure that their centers remain fully occupied.

Stellenbosch takes over Gourmet crown

Three Stellenbosch restaurants have made the 2009 Prudential Eat Out Top Ten restaurant list, being Overture, Rust en Vrede and Terroir.   The first two restaurants are new entrants to the top ten list.     

The Stellenbosch success is at the expense of Franschhoek, which retains only one restaurant on the top ten list, being the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais,  slipping from top position last year to 7th place this year.     Franschhoek’s Grand Provence and Bread & Wine, on the top ten list last year, fell off the top list, with the former falling off the top twenty list.    Reubens did not manage to make the top ten list, but was on the top 20 list.  
Competition for the top ten list was tough, with many new restaurants making the top twenty list, from which the top ten restaurants were selected.   The winners, in order, are as follows: La Colombe, Jardine, Terroir, Overture, Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient in Pretoria, Rust en Vrede, The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais, Roots at Forum Homini, Bizerca and Hartford House.    La Colombe was selected as Restaurant of the Year and its chef Luke Dale-Roberts the Chef of the Year.  Terroir won the Service Award, while the Lifetime Achievement Award was made posthumously to Frank Swainston, who was at Constantia Uitsig until his death earlier this year.

Notable upsets were the exclusion from the list of The Showroom and Aubergine.    Ginja was a top ten winner last year, but did not even make the top twenty list this year.

The judges selected the top restaurants on the basis of operating for a year or more, the chefs demonstrating a passion for their business, showing a dedication to uplifting the industry,  where chefs source their ingredients, and consistence and excellence in all aspects of their business.  Food quality counted for 70 points, service for 20 and ambience for 10 in judging the top restaurants.

Seven top restaurants are in the Western Cape, of which three in Cape Town, three in Stellenbosch and one in Franschhoek.

Bertus Basson, award-winning chef at Overture, opens Genot on Kleingenot in Franschhoek today.

Franschhoek goes to Cape Town!

Well-known Franschhoek tapas restaurant Bouillabaisse is to open a sister restaurant in the new Epicurean Food Emporium in Cape Town next month.  Chef and owner Camil Haas previously owned Klein Oliphantshoek, the guest house at which he and his wife Ingrid prepared award-winning tasting menu meals for their guests. 

Not only will a new Bouillabaisse open in Cape Town, but a new restaurant Crepe Suzette will also be opened by the Haas duo.

The Epicurean Food Emporium has been designed by Conrad Gallagher Consulting, and will open in The Rockwell, an apartment building in De Waterkant.    It will be set up as a neighbourhood food market, with 15 food and beverage stores selling freshly baked bread, homemade jam, chutney, pesto, olive oil, wine, gourmet sandwiches, chocolates, ice cream, confectionery and cheeses.  It is to become a one-stop market synonomous with fine food, outstanding service, quality and food trends, reports Supermarket & Retailer.   Further restaurants, in addition to Bouillabaisse and Crepe Suzette, are set to open.

Other restaurant news is that onewaterfront, the restaurant in the Cape Grace Hotel in the Waterfront, which became famous when Bruce Robertson was the chef, is changing its name to Signal, reports eatout, in honour of Cape Town’s traditional noon day gun on Signal Hill.   The restaurant will serve Cape food, reflecting the French Huguenot, British, Dutch and Asian heritage of the Cape.

Bruce Robertson, now the owner of award-winning and Top 10 restaurant The Showroom, is opening another restaurant, located in the Grand Daddy Hotel, previously The Metropole Hotel, in Long Street, called theshowroomcafe, reports eatout.   The menu will be casual, local and “unfussy”, and the chef is Simone Rossouw.

Richard Carstens, top 10 restauranteur when he was at Lynton Hall in KwaZulu-Natal and Bijoux in Franschhoek, is not moving to Franschhoek, as speculated, but is relaunching Relish in New Church Street, and is now called Nova, reports eatout.    A tasting menu (at R 325 per person) and an a la carte menu will be offered.