Tag Archives: Vin de Constance

Constantia Wine Route has oldest wine estates, yet young and hip!

imageRecently a group of bloggers was invited by its marketing team to experience a part of the 18 km Constantia Wine Route, being Constantia Glen, Groot Constantia, and Steenberg. We had a very informative and wine-derful day, experiencing parts of an excellent wine route of ten wine estates on our Cape Town doorstep! It has been synonymous with sweet wines drunk centuries ago already.

The Constantia Wine Route PR staff Carryn Wiltshire and her assistant Hayley had kindly organized for us to travel to Constantia by Uber, much appreciated for the return journey in particular. Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 13 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   More than 400 African tourism products and services have signed up as exhibitors at INDABA2015, to be held in Durban from 9 – 11 May.

*   SAA is resuming daily direct non-stop flights between Johannesburg and New York from 7 March, a time reduction on the northern route of one and a half hours.

*   ‘Fifty Shades of Grey‘ is on everyone’s lips the world over, with its international release today, Continue reading →

Café Chic reopens with slick service, excellent cuisine, hands-on but controversial Chef Conrad Gallagher!

Cafe Chic exterior Whale CottageCafé Chic opened in Gardens in 1999, a Victorian building with a chic interior created by French owner Francoise Queyroi.  A year ago the restaurant was closed and placed on the market, but has not yet found a buyer. It was a surprise that Chef Conrad Gallagher has taken over the building, renting it lock, stock and barrel, including its cutlery (by Helcometals from Egypt/France), crockery, glassware, table cloths, and serviettes, with a view to buying it in future.  Given Chef Conrad’s reputation related to a Cafe Chic Conrad Gallagher Whale Cottageprevious era of owning restaurants in Cape Town, it is brave of him to return!

Chef Conrad had opened Geisha in 2007 in the building alongside Newport Deli in Mouille Point, spending R3,5 million on its interior, when he received an eviction order, being informed that the building was to be demolished, to make way for a new building.  He moved to the Cape Royale Continue reading →

Eat Out Top 10 Chef Peter Tempelhoff creates Table Mountain dish for World Design Capital 2014!

WDC 001b (1024x750) Dessert by Peter TempelhoffChef Peter Tempelhoff, of Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant The Greenhouse at the Cellars-Hohenhort, has created a special dessert he calls ‘Table Mont Blanc’, in honour of Cape Town hosting World Design Capital 2014.

I received information about the dish from Cape Town Design NPC, the company managing Cape Town’s role as World Design Capital 2014, in its latest newsletter, which shared the news and the ingredients of the dish, but did not add a visual.  I was impressed with the speed of response from both Eclipse PR, handling the PR locally for World Design Capital 2014, and from The Greenhouse, despite the restaurant being closed for its winter break.  Very impressive was Chef Peter calling, to establish exactly what I required, not having seen the newsletter with the information about his dish.

The ‘Table Mont Blanc‘ dessert represents Table Mountain, according to Chef Peter, ‘but only abstractly… as we would rather leave a bit to the imagination.  The real symbiosis between the dessert and the actual mountain is in the ingredients.  Each integral part of the dessert is flavoured with an ingredient found on the slopes of the mountain’.   The elements of the dessert are the following: Continue reading →