The Moveable Feast

So we hit up this new spot in town on a balmy evening, which is generally not our preferred lunch-time, but lunching ladies sometimes have to make concessions. We also brought the munching men. To be fair, at least we never said we would, or would never, nor wouldn’t not (double negative), do that, so here we are.

For many Capetonians, the iconic Rafiki’s was an institution that we either remember fondly, avoided at all costs, or used as a handy traffic reference for the intersection that’s now represented by Beleza, El Burro Taqueria, Junior, The Power and the Glory, Miller’s Thumb, Kyoto Garden Sushi, etc. If you never went, imagine Rafiki’s as the place up the dodgy stairs that was reliably open, full of rollicking youths tucking into buckets of beer, ridiculously priced food specials, and many cigarettes (the smells of all of which clung to the walls like Dwayne Johnson to skyscrapers with duct tape).

Janse and Co.

There’s a new “fine dining” kid on the Kloof block – or rather “casual fine dining”, as Janse and Co. describes itself. That, and the fact that its menu begins with a philosophy and concludes with a glossary, probably should have been a warning sign.

It shouldn’t need pointing out, but “casual fine dining” remains an oxymoron, no matter how many restaurants claim to be part of a whole new genre which generally boils down to a po-mo excuse to charge exorbitant prices for doing whatever they want. Let’s break it down: “fine dining” should be un-ordinary (aka extraordinary; not your everyday comfort hangover burger) food; “casual” should be somewhere where you don’t need a reservation or a tie, and you can eat food with your hands. So is casual fine dining a place to eat excellent fancy food and where they won’t turn you away in slops? That could work, and those places exist, like La Colombe, Overture etc., but that would still be a bullshit appellation because whether you’re wearing slops or not, there’s nothing casual about the food in either of those places. These are restaurants that want to be world-class, and (mostly) succeed because it shows on the plate, in the service, in the whole damn thing being thought through. And that’s why you’d be willing to go drop a grand on a meal there and not feel ripped off.

La Tête

 

You know when you go to a restaurant and order, like, *everything* on the menu?

Neither do we, but this was probably the closest we got to that kind of Godfather behaviour. And before you think that’s a ridiculous, wasteful thing to do in any case, rest assured that we’re not amateurs – we brought the Munching Men, and then some, because we knew that this place is not for sissies.

I mean, the chef at La Tête (which means “head” in case you’ve forgotten your school French, or how to Google translate) used to work in the kitchen of St. John in London, for Fergus Henderson, the Godfather of nose-to-tail cooking himself. Henderson is the chef who made it cool to consume pretty much everything, including ideas about how to be cool – which he clearly doesn’t need to do himself, because he’s the kind of guy who drinks Fernet-Branca for fun (or possibly as a hangover cure, for which he is also famous – the cure, that is).

Fergus Henderson, badass (image swiped from Instagram)

La Petite Colombe

La Petite Colombe is the much anticipated sister restaurant to La Colombe, now in the space that used to be occupied by The Tasting Room at “boutique hotel” Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek, once named 88th out of the Top 100 Restaurants in the World, if you care about such things. La Colombe has also been in that ranking, by the way, occupying position 73 for 2017 (and 76 for 2016), though bizarrely the hotel website doesn’t even include a new restaurant of that association on its list of dining options. We suspect this is some proprietary branding issue, in which La Colombe doesn’t officially belong to the “Leeu Collection”, which now also includes Mullineux & Leeu Wines, probably thanks to a rich man having lunch in Franschhoek one day and deciding to buy whatever was for sale (watch this space: someday this entire “Huguenot” town might just be a real-life gallery).

So blabla – how was lunch, you ask? Perfectly lovely.

But first, we need to talk about Tim.

The Crazy Horse

So we’re not the first people to visit Bree Street’s “newest gastropub”, which is exactly why we’re here. Not that we have to go where the hipsters go, but when everyone and their wannabe foodie neighbour start waxing lyrical about Beef Wellington and odd imposing staircases in our hood, we think it’s worth checking out. (Let’s also point out with our pedantic index fingers that it’s not the first pub in the world to be called Crazy Horse, so if you’re ever in Michigan, Indiana, California, Ottowa, or even, ooh la la, Paris, where it goes by Le Crazy Horse – and comes with cabaret – they got you covered. Maybe there are only so many original names. Or maybe some people just get lazy thinking about names.)

On arrival, it’s unassuming in a way that could make you easily miss it – no big signage outside – but charming if you don’t, thanks to bulldog and Union Jack welcoming mats. We walk in, and are confronted with … an imposing staircase. Do we go left to the bar, right to the booths, or straight up the staircase (to … ?).

Thali

Thali is the new-ish kid on Park Road by chef-in-chief Liam Tomlin and actual-chef-in-the-kitchen John van Zyl. It’s no secret that we’re big fans of chef Tomlin (who isn’t?), who helms the impossibly delicious Chefs [sic] Warehouse on Bree Street, and who’s also recently godfathered its sister-spot, Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia. This one is more of a cousin than a sibling, because it’s fashioned as “Indian tapas”, rather than the more Mediterranean/Asian vibe of both Chefs’.

It’s not the first Indian “tapas” spot in Cape Town – Sundoo in Seapoint could probably claim that maverick call. Why maverick? Because thali evidently refers to “an Indian-style meal, made up of a selection of various dishes, served on a platter. The ‘thali’ style serving is also popular in Nepal and Bangladesh. It simply means a round platter used to serve food”. So why, then, call it tapas, especially if your “roots are deeply founded in Kerala, India – better known as ‘The Land of Spices'”, as chef Seelan Sundoo’s are?

But these are linguistic quibbles that just highlight how Cape Town prefers to gaze at the Mediterranean rather than further east. As much as we care about language, we try not to let this influence our enjoyment of dinner at Thali.

Osteria Tarantino

“Is sign language even speech?”

This is how an evening might begin when you invite the men who munch to dinner. Would it go up or down from here?

Fortunately there were built-in distractions, like needing to take the walk across the road from pre-dinner drinks at Cafe Manhattan to our 7pm reservation at Osteria Tarantino.

The Greenhouse

Dear people who eat,

Do you like to lunch in pleasant surroundings?

Do you enjoy nice food?

If you answered yes to both of those questions with no qualifications, then The Greenhouse may be wasted on you, because “nice” and “pleasant” are what we in the business of any thinking person like to call aggressively average. The Greenhouse is by no means average (nor aggressive).

The Silo Rooftop

Let’s begin with the fact that The Silo Rooftop is not for everyone.

Seriously, you can’t get up there unless you’re a resident of the hotel – which by the way sells silk gowns in their lobby for a cool R7K (plus minus), and which includes in their portfolio a penthouse called “The One Above” which costs a mere R127 000 per night in low season – or, if you’re a pleb, by booking in advance, and have no issue with paying R75 for “Dry Snacks” of biltong, chips, and nuts on the bar menu. (Yeah sure, buying these three things in Woolies may well add up to the same, but then let’s commend the grand old Dame Nellie for at least offering said snacks for “free” alongside their ridiculously priced drinks in their ridiculously lovely garden.)