{"id":8346,"date":"2010-05-17T10:22:03","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T08:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=8346"},"modified":"2010-09-03T02:37:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T00:37:42","slug":"restaurant-review-la-mouette-restaurant-flying-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/restaurant-review-la-mouette-restaurant-flying-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: La Mouette Restaurant flying high"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A Tudor-style restaurant building, built in the 1930’s, has become the home of one of Cape Town’s best “finer dining” restaurants, offering excellent value for money.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0La Mouette (The Gull) has opened on Regent Road in Sea Point (there is no branding on the outside yet, so one must look for the number 78, near Checkers), and is\u00a0named in honour of the noisy landmark of this suburb, even though there were no seagulls\u00a0to be seen nor heard while I was there.\u00a0\u00a0The building was\u00a0previously the home\u00a0of Europa and The Carvery.\u00a0\u00a0 Coats of paint, chic decor inside, and a bubbling fountain filled with Koi in the entrance courtyard and surrounded by French-style bistro tables and chairs, have given the building a new lease on life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it is the owner trio of General Manager Mari Vermaak, Chef Henry Vigar, and Marketer\/Righthand Gerrit Bruwer that has “rejuvenated” the building and its interior, with a refreshing approach to running\u00a0a restaurant of excellence, based on\u00a0Henry and Mari’s\u00a0experience in the restaurant industry in London.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vigar is\u00a0a passionate chef whose cooking style is modern French-style cuisine with a Mediterranean influence.\u00a0 He has\u00a0worked at a number of Michelin-starred restaurants (The Square, La Noisette and The Greenhouse in London, Rascasse in Leeds, and Hotel des Pyrenees in France) as well as at The Quayside in Sydney.\u00a0 He\u00a0was\u00a0the Head Chef at Kensington Place, where\u00a0Eric Bulpitt, chef at Jardine on Bree Street, worked for\u00a0him for a while.<\/p>\n

Mari is\u00a0a bubbly yet serious restaurateur, who has a firm hand on the operation of the restaurant.\u00a0\u00a0 She has done all the staff training, and impressed me with her description of how they\u00a0employed the best of more than 400 applicants for the waitron\u00a0and kitchen positions,\u00a0including making applicants write food and wine knowledge tests.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All the staff have\u00a0sampled all the dishes on the menu, and whenever a new dish is introduced, Chef Henry explains it to the waiters.\u00a0 Wine estates like Villiera and L’avenir have come to the restaurant, to train the staff about their wines.\u00a0\u00a0 The service from my waiter Peter was perfect, a reflection of Mari’s thorough training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mari grew up in George, and was a graphic designer before moving to London, where\u00a0she was\u00a0a Restaurant Manager at Gilmours on Park Walk, at Kensington Place, and at Launceston Place.\u00a0\u00a0 It was at Kensington Place that Chef Henry showed her his interest by sending specially made chocolate macaroons to her desk.\u00a0The rest is history, as they say in the classics!\u00a0\u00a0Mari’s London background shows, in her neat black shirt, skirt and stockings, the ultimate classic front-of-house dress.\u00a0 Mari is a warm, friendly, down-to-earth\u00a0and generous\u00a0hostess, giving up three hours of her time, sitting and chatting to me about their background, and receiving a quick overview about the importance of social media marketing from me.\u00a0\u00a0 Whilst they have just started a blog, they agreed that it is time to embrace Twitter, especially given their gull theme, and did so immediately!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gerrit and Mari both studied graphic design at the University of Potchefstroom, and\u00a0Gerrit has designed a beautiful corporate identity for the stationery, menu and winelist, with flying seagulls and flowers.\u00a0 Mari and Henry are partners, and both Leos!<\/p>\n

Mari felt it important to not alienate locals, and hence all menu items were named in English instead of their French equivalent.\u00a0\u00a0 The menu has a small selection of dishes, making it relatively easy to choose.\u00a0\u00a0 The lunch and dinner menus are almost identical in terms of dishes offered, but the prices differ somewhat.\u00a0 For lunch, for example, one can order extra sides, at R 25 each, whilst they do not appear on the dinner menu.\u00a0 For lunch all Starters and Desserts cost R 35, and Mains cost R 80, a total of R 150 for a 3-course lunch, whilst the\u00a0dinner cost is R 210 for 3-courses, or R 50 for the Starters and Desserts, and R 110 for all Mains.\u00a0The dinner menu\u00a0offers one or two more options for each course.<\/p>\n

I had the Chicken liver parfait, chicken reillette, pear chutney and toasted brioche as a starter, a lovely combination, the pear chutney being a surprise but well-matched.\u00a0\u00a0 I overheard a neighbouring table proclaim that the French onion soup was the best they had ever eaten.\u00a0 Other lunch starters\u00a0are a tomato salad served with tapenade and smoked mozarella; mushrooms on toast served with walnut salad and roasted fig; and prawn and ginger ravioli.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I ordered the sweetcorn risotto served with the cutest tempura pea shoots, almost a work of art, and decorated with lime and coriander gremoulata.\u00a0 \u00a0Alternatives are “house-made” linguini (by an Italian in the kitchen), hake, chicken, confit duck, and minute steak.\u00a0 The dessert options are really interesting,\u00a0and gives one\u00a0a feel for Chef Henry’s creativity (he still\u00a0seems somewhat more classic, but with a twist,\u00a0on the starters and mains), and I will come back for these:\u00a0\u00a0peanut butter parfait and chocolate ganache; a “gin and tonic” with a difference; and passion fruit curd, doughnuts, Greek yoghurt and honey foam.\u00a0\u00a0 The cappuccino was excellent, the coffee being supplied by Deluxe, a small specialist coffee roastery in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

An alternative to the menu is a choice of tapas style dishes to share, at R 35 each: marinated vegetables and olives; truffle and cheese croquettes; tempura style vegetables and roasted pepper dip; sweet onion tart, olive, thyme and marinated anchovy; and crispy calamari, smoked paprika and saffron aioli.<\/p>\n

The winelist is neatly presented, and offers an impressive list of\u00a015 wines-by-the glass, and about 75 wines.\u00a0 One senses that many of the wines stocked are because of a special relationship that developed between the wine estate and Henry and Mari when they were compiling their winelist, and Avondale, Villiera, Springfield\u00a0and L’avenir feature strongly on the list, as does Tokara Zondernaam.\u00a0\u00a0 Champagnes are stocked (Moet & Chandon, Billecart Salmon Rose, Champagne Barons de Rothschild and Bollinger Special Cuvee), while the very recently launched La Motte Methode Cap Classique (R500), as well as Villiera, Pierre Jourdan and L’avenir sparkling wines are also stocked.\u00a0\u00a0 A number of Shiraz options are available, ranging from R 150 for Villiera Shiraz, to R 280 for the Thelema.\u00a0\u00a0 No vintages are offered on the winelist, one of few points of criticism.<\/p>\n

Mari refused to allow me to pay for the two course lunch, glass of bubbly and two cappuccinos I enjoyed with her.\u00a0\u00a0 I therefore returned for a paid-for dinner with\u00a0a friend\u00a0three days later, and we were impressed with the Butternut squash soup served with\u00a0toasted pine nuts and blue cheese, and the\u00a0sweetcorn risotto and the pan-fried Duck breast as main courses.\u00a0 We were spoilt with a taste of the Bouillabaisse, with a plump prawn, tiny mussel, tender tube of calamari and crayfish.\u00a0 For dessert we\u00a0had the signature “Gin and Tonic”,\u00a0consisting of tonic jelly, gin syrup, and lime ice cream,\u00a0the most unusual dessert I have ever experienced, refreshing and\u00a0revitalising.\u00a0<\/p>\n

La Mouette is planning themed evenings, and will open a chic wine bar upstairs in December.\u00a0\u00a0 One can sense the energy and innovation\u00a0in what is still a very early start for the restaurant, my visit having been\u00a0a week\u00a0after opening.\u00a0\u00a0 La Mouette is a restaurant to watch, and will\u00a0soon be flying high on the Cape Town restaurant scene.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT<\/strong>: I was privileged to have been invited to the Chef’s Table at La Mouette on 20 May, in the company of Clare Mack of Spill Blog, JamieWho of JamieWho Blog, Kim Maxwell, Rey Franco, and Sam from L’Avenir.\u00a0\u00a0 The amuse bouche was a butternut soup served with a to-die-for cheese and truffle croquet, followed by a prawn and ginger ravioli, mushrooms on toast served with walnut salad and vanilla roasted fig, a highly praised Bouillabaisse, Rib of Beef, the famous “gin and tonic” dessert of Chef Henry, passion fruit curd served with\u00a0mini-doughnuts, and the “crunchie” dessert,\u00a0served as\u00a0a chocolate fondant, honeycomb espuma and ice cream.\u00a0Every course was perfectly paired with a L’Avenir wine.\u00a0 Such a good time was had that the last guests left long after midnight.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The La Mouette branding has now been erected at the entrance to the restaurant, and should make it easier to find the restaurant.<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 4 JULY<\/strong>: I have returned to La Mouette a number of times, and always had attentive service from Mari.\u00a0\u00a0 My last visit was a disappointing one, probably due to Mari not being on duty that evening.\u00a0\u00a0 The manager on duty\u00a0was not on the floor except for showing us our table and apologising about the winelist error.\u00a0 A winelist “typing error” for an incorrect\u00a0Villiera wine-by-the-glass vintage, which had been identified ten days prior as an error,\u00a0was still on the winelist.\u00a0\u00a0 The waiter stretched in front of us to put down the cutlery.\u00a0 The wrong amount was taken off\u00a0my credit card for payment.\u00a0 There was no one\u00a0to greet us when we left the restaurant.\u00a0\u00a0I wrote to Mari after the dinner, and received a very defensive “Dear customer” letter.<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 2\/9<\/strong>:\u00a0 I returned for the first time in 2 months today, sitting in the fountain courtyard, dominated by a massive motorbike parked there.\u00a0 Mari was professional, yet\u00a0very changed in attitude, due to our feedback about the 4 July dinner.\u00a0\u00a0 The restaurant has changed to a Spring Special menu at R175 for 6 courses (or R350 for wines paired to 5 of the courses), with a typing error.\u00a0 An Express 2-course lunch at R99 has been introduced, which was not good value –\u00a0my colleague had the marinated tomato salad and chicken.\u00a0\u00a0We shared a bowl of Chef Henry’s new cheese and ham croquettes, and I ordered my favourite, the chicken liver parfait.\u00a0\u00a0 The Beef Sirloin was average, four small slices expensive\u00a0at R105 – one pays a R25 supplement for it.\u00a0\u00a0 The Tapas selection has been taken off the menu. The service from Hazel was sweet, and she was very willing to please, but stretched across us in replacing the cutlery.\u00a0 Mari did not want us to pay for the meal today, due to the problems with our 4 July meal, but we refused her generous offer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

La Mouette<\/strong>, 78 Regent Road, Sea Point.\u00a0 tel 021 433-0856. www.lamouette.co.za<\/a>\u00a0(the website is one of the best I have ever seen for a restaurant, informative, with menu and winelist, and link to the blog).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter @teamlamouette.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Open\u00a0Tuesdays – Sundays for lunch, and Mondays – Saturday evenings for dinner.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tudor-style restaurant building, built in the 1930’s, has become the home of one of Cape Town’s best “finer dining” restaurants, offering excellent value for money.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0La Mouette (The Gull) has opened on Regent Road in Sea Point (there is no branding on the outside yet, so one must look for the number 78, near Checkers), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,20,21],"tags":[4756,2822,4641,900,1591,3997,315,32366,992,7108,32378,4755,4642,3849,4635,4637,7110,4634,7109,4639,4632,4750,4633,4747,40,4638,2830,1540,4630,4745,4751,4754,669,4752,4631,4289,1066,3794,698,228,4746,252,658,145,2630,7107,4640,4749,4758,542,1074,4259,4636,2690,4748,2223,403,1988,1587,4753,1824,2837,4757,3440,32373,2487,572,2127,3404],"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