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<\/a>I spontaneously dropped in at the new Cypriot Ouzeri restaurant on Wale Street last night, and learnt about Cypriot food, about its owner Chef Nick Charalambous, and tasted dishes from Greece and Cyprus I\u2019d never heard of before.<\/p>\nArriving at 18h00, with no one else present, the hostess at the door told me that they are fully booked, and was happy to send me on my way. I told her that I wasn\u2019t planning to spend the whole evening there, and did she have a short gap for me. The Restaurant Manager was kind, looked at her Reservations schedule, and found a table that gave me a one hour eating time, which was perfect. <\/p>\n
The restaurant opened on Wale Street in the space of a coffee shop next door to Honest Caf\u00e9 on 16 June. Being fully booked on a weekday night almost two months later is testimony to the fact that Owner Nick came to say hello, and I realised that I knew very little about him. Somehow I associated him with being a bar mixologist, but he is in fact a Silwood qualified chef who does not appear to have made an impact on the restaurant scene in Cape Town previously. From Pretoria originally, with grandparents who immigrated to our country in the \u2018Seventies during the Turkish invasion of Cypress, Chef Nick alluded to having had a bad traumatic experience in a top restaurant he was working at, which moved him out of the restaurant industry and took him to Dubai for 18 months in a completely different field. I did not ask him what made him come back to Cape Town, Nick worked with designers Master Studio in creating a less is more interior, with classic wooden and very comfortable chairs, especially made for the restaurant, and the design echoed in a cupboard I was facing, storing the music system, glassware, credit card machines, napkins, and more. Interesting Greek\/Cypriot artefacts The waiter brought some water, the menu, a winelist with local boutique wines, and a list of Greek Ouzo and local Vermouth. \u00a0He had to explain each dish to me, as each item has Greek or Cypriot food terms. He apologised when he could not explain \u2018tashi\u2019 to me, being told by the Manager that it is a tahini sauce. \u00a0He has been in Cape Town for a month, and approached Nick for a job, as Nick\u2019s mother was his Maths teacher at school in Pretoria.<\/p>\n I chose two Starter portions and a dessert:<\/p>\n # \u00a0 # \u00a0Nick explained the Lamb Manti to me, being<\/a> Ouzeri has taken off in the city centre.<\/p>\n<\/a>and to open his own restaurant.<\/p>\n<\/a>on the walls give a hint of the origin of the food in the restaurant, and there is none of the clich\u00e9 Greek blue and related decor, giving the restaurant a classy feel.<\/p>\n<\/a>Cream of the Crop Halloumi (with a mint leaf in-between two halves) \u00a0served with cucumber sticks and a tashi dip, explained as being a tahini sauce made from a sesame seed paste, the cucumber refreshing and crunchy, and the halloumi not being too chewy (R110). Nick told me that his sister-in-law Maria has created a dairy brand Cream of the Crop, making butter, yoghurt,\u00a0and halloumi from her cows in Piketberg. Some of her products are for sale at The Olive Branch, also owned by Cypriots.<\/p>\n<\/a> four pasta pockets filled with lamb served with dill yoghurt, burnt tomato butter, and a lovely crispy and crunchy chopped soujouk sausage sprinkled on top, giving it a fabulous texture. (R85)<\/p>\n