{"id":79264,"date":"2016-05-27T21:49:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T19:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=79264"},"modified":"2016-05-31T20:25:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T18:25:09","slug":"inaugural-20162017-gourmet-guide-launched-top-21-sa-restaurants-plated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/inaugural-20162017-gourmet-guide-launched-top-21-sa-restaurants-plated\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural 2016\/2017 Gourmet Guide launched, Top 21 SA restaurants ‘plated’!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a>Today the inaugural ‘2016\/2017 Gourmet Guide: Top South African Restaurants, their Chefs & Recipes<\/em>‘ was launched at the Good Food & Wine Show. Twenty one top restaurants were honored with one or two plates, acknowledging them as the best restaurants in our country.
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We have written previously about the Gourmet\u00a0Guide, and its awards<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, a very low\"image\"<\/a>-key new award system, only really known to the restaurants which were honored at the award ceremony today. Initially the awards were described as our country’s Michelin awards, and a similar methodology was said to have been used to find the top restaurants. Creator of the Gourmet Guide and the awards, Jenny Handley (in the photograph with DW Eleven -13 Chef Marthinus Ferreira), of the promotions company named after her, posted short descriptions about her restaurant visits on her Blog ‘Jen’s Journeys of Flavours<\/em>‘. The top 21 Chefs honored were sworn to secrecy, and none of them knew how many plates (one or two) they would win. \u00a0A teaser campaign was emailed to the chefs as well as interested parties daily, with a written description of one of the restaurants as well as a photograph of one of its dishes. The clues were really difficult, and I only recognised that of Indochine (‘Virtually Asian<\/em>‘), Springfontein Eats (with a reference to ‘German expertise<\/em>‘), and Hartford House (‘Meander… to magnificence<\/em>‘).<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a>As the winning chefs could not all attend at the same time, they received their award in groups, ten of the twenty one chefs arriving between 10h00 – 11h00 this morning. \u00a0I was allowed to attend the award handover, and received a complimentary copy of the Gourmet\u00a0Guide too. Chef Chantel Dartnall of Restaurant Mosaic outside Pretoria was unable to attend, having to be at her restaurant. Chef Constantijn Hahndiek of Hartford House (left) spent 24 hours in Cape Town, having to rush back to the Mooi River restaurant for dinner service tonight, and for a busy weekend lying ahead, having just opened their new tea house. \u00a0Chef Marthinus is planning to spend the weekend in Cape Town, catching up with his chef mates. He looks amazing, having lost a \u00a0large amount of weight, and was beaming, also because his restaurant did so well in the awards. I arrived at the same time as Chefs Michael Broughton of Terroir and Chris Erasmus of \"image\"<\/a>Foliage (right), and we chatted to Eat Out<\/strong>‘s Abigail Donnelly, theoretically a competitor to the new Guide. She was unaware that the awards would be presented today.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a>Winners of Two Plate Awards<\/strong><\/span> (recognizing extraordinary cuisine that warrants a special trip) were the following restaurants:<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Chef’s Warehouse<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 DW Eleven-13<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Foliage<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Restaurant Mosaic<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 La Colombe<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 The Pot Luck Club<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 The Test Kitchen.<\/p>\n

The winners of the One Plate Award<\/span><\/strong> (recognizing ‘excellent cuisine, a top-quality eating experience<\/em>‘) are:<\/p>\n

# \u00a0Aubergine<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Camphors at Vergelegen<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Ellerman House (even though not open to the public)<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Hartford House\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Indochine at Delaire Graff (Chef Virgil Khan with Tanja\u00a0Mackay Davidson in the photograph)<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Jordan Restaurant<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Myoga<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Nobu at the One & Only Cape Town<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Qunu at The Saxon Boutique Hotel<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Springfontein Eats in Stanford, its Chef J\u00fcrgen Schneider having received one Michelin star for his restaurant in Germany<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 The Roundhouse Restaurant<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Fran\u00e7ais<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Terroir<\/p>\n

# \u00a0 Winehouse, a surprise to most chefs I spoke to, being associated with Ten Bompas Hotel in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

Three plates will only be awarded to restaurants upholding and elevating their standards in the future.<\/p>\n

Conspicuous by their absence are other top restaurant contenders which did not make the Top 21 Restaurant\u00a0list: Overture, Waterkloof, Greenhouse, Pierneef \u00e0 La Motte, Maison, Grande Provence, The Restaurant at Newton Johnson, Tokara, Rust en Vrede, The Werf Restaurant at Boschendal, and Delaire Graff Restaurant.<\/p>\n

While 21 restaurants were recognised in receiving one or two plate awards, the Gourmet\u00a0Guide contains a total of 82 restaurants (although claimed in the Guide to be a list of 100) including the Top 21 restaurants mentioned above, as well as 9th Avenue Bistro, 95 Keerom, Azure at the Twelve Apostles, Babel at Babylonstoren, Bistrot Bizerca, Bosman’s at Grande Roche, Bread & Wine, Cheyne’s, De Grendel, Kitima, La Mouette, ON19, Planet Restaurant, Roots, and View at the Four Seasons. Greenhouse, The Restaurant at Newton Johnson, Rust en Vrede, Boschendal, and Pierneef \u00e0\u00a0la Motte are not included in the Guide at all. Weird was the inclusion of a host of restaurants that would not be considered as ‘Gourmet’<\/em> or competing in the league of the Top 21, such as El Burro, Don Armando, Gabri\u00eblskloof, The Kitchen, The Dining Room, Kloof Street House, La Boheme, Magica\u00a0Roma, Reuben’s at the Robertson Small Hotel, Orinoco, and True Italic.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a>The Gourmet Guide is impartial, the media statement claims, clearly a dig at Eat Out<\/strong>, in that it does not contain any advertisements for restaurants or hotels. Ads for Taittinger (the champagne which was served to the winning chefs), and Rio Largo Olive Estate are the only ones in the Guide.<\/p>\n

A list of 32 criteria was evaluated for each restaurant, being aspects relating to food, wine, service, setting, ambiance, and decor. In addition, cleanliness was evaluated. \u00a0Consistency of performance was also evaluated, meaning that the restaurants should have operated for two seasons at least. For each restaurant listed in the Gourmet\u00a0Guide, details (address, telephone number, website, location) are provided, and a \"image\"<\/a>short summary of the establishment offered. For some restaurants recipes for some of the dishes are provided too. QR codes are provided for each restaurant.<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 29\/5<\/b>: I was disturbed by two bits of feedback I received about the Gourmet Guide today, seriously affecting its reputation : the certificate for Indochine, a one plate winner, has the name of the restaurant as well as Chef Virgil Kahn’s surname incorrectly spelt! I have also heard that the publication personnel contacted the PR agencies of the restaurants, requesting free meals for Ms Handley and her assistant. This would amount to a ‘sighted’ evaluation, as the restaurants would have known about the visit, and would be the furthest from a Michelin-style evaluation which Handley had promised initially!<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 31\/5<\/strong>: \u00a0We received the following feedback from Natalie Brock, Ms Handley’s PA: \u00a0‘Some of the restaurants that were not plated, or included, could have been for a number of reasons, but predominantly because the chef declined a final evaluation (the word inaugural does not excite everyone!), or because the service in the restaurant did not come up to scratch. \u00a0There are more than 100 restaurants mentioned in the guide \u2013 some properties have more than one eg Vergelegen has Camphors reviewed and The Stables mentioned, there are a few Reubens and le Sels’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jenny Handley: ‘2016\/2017 Gourmet Guide: Top South African Restaurants, their Chefs & Restaurants<\/em><\/strong>‘. Map Studio. \u00a0Tel (021) 437-0334 \u00a0www.jennyhandley.co.za<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Twitter: @Jenny_Handley @MapStudio Available at leading bookstores at R299.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog:\u00a0www.whalecottage.com\/blog<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 Tel 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@WhaleCottage \u00a0<\/strong>Facebook: \u00a0<\/strong>click here<\/a>\u00a0Instagram: @Chris_Ulmenstein<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Today the inaugural ‘2016\/2017 Gourmet Guide: Top South African Restaurants, their Chefs & Recipes‘ was launched at the Good Food & Wine Show. Twenty one top restaurants were honored with one or two plates, acknowledging them as the best restaurants in our country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[11198,3,124,1918,266,14,20,32565],"tags":[33971,8845,33975,2803,38,8238,8239,17654,182,143,33977,17150,32366,2812,11979,1686,2552,32378,29668,2196,16336,30428,6825,138,12816,2229,17710,25604,1647,21581,4693,32968,140,9367,554,5246,28833,26942,14134,17815,1983,39,4630,555,1360,7006,33972,8884,4099,33973,2564,35,509,33090,15857,33,6611,7753,12383,28889,13,33978,1606,61,34,13409,22867,9204,447,18039,7956,14495,1362,7518,31048,59,23501,26242,3056,1528,33974,33976],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t