Plan a trip for your tastebuds on your next journey to the Western Cape
The Red Room, Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel
‘Iconic’ is a horribly over-used word, but it does apply to the Mount Nelson, which makes you feel like you’re visiting somewhere historic or the set of a Wes Anderson movie – often at the same time. The Red Room (above), owned by Liam Tomlin and David Schneider, is – even though it is underground – easy to find, thanks to the name being elegantly spelled out in tiles to one side of the hotel’s main entrance. As you pass over this mosaic, heavy old wooden doors, now automated, swing open as though you’re being welcomed by a ghost doorman.
Descending carpeted stairs, diners reach a dramatically lit (read: dark-ish) area that lives up to the restaurant’s name. The decor is striking, with velvet-clad, semi-circular benches curving around the bigger tables, with smaller tables having their two chairs arranged on one side to aid the sharing of the Pan-Asian dishes once they’ve been delivered. The staff need to be – and are – well trained and knowledgeable regarding a menu full of dishes from Japan, Korea, China, and Malaysia, as well as which combinations of those dishes work well together.
The dessert stack is phenomenal, even if the fortune cookies take the easy way out by making general statements. That’s the only clichéd part of the meal, though, with the lush surroundings, house cocktails, and wide array of combinations of shareable dishes pretty much ensuring a memorable time with a partner or friends.
De Tafel, Wynberg
The in-house restaurant at Palm House Boutique and Spa, De Tafel (below), is also a standalone culinary destination, aiming to be both another reason for foodies to head to Cape Town in general and relatively unglamorous Wynberg specifically. It’s also a wonderfully convenient option for residents of the suburb and surrounds, saving them a drive into town or wherever else there are further fine dining options.
The decor adds wonderful ambience, with a large chandelier and a beautiful textured mural. Outside seating is an option if the weather is warm, but then you lose out on this emotive design.
The menu is comparatively compact, but it’s updated often, allowing for both Head Chef Gerard van Staden’s ever-developing creativity and the use of whatever ingredients are freshest at the time. It offers a four-course meal, with portions combining for a happy, non-bloated total. Beef carpaccio with oxtail bitterballen with lemon and a parmesan pepper foam. Then butternut ravioli, with cinnamon sugar shards a stand-out element. Then a roast lemon-lacquered loin of lamb with tree-ringed potatoes. All closed out with a chocolate tart with salted caramel sauce. It’s gastronomic gladness – and if you’re staying at the hotel, you’ll head up to bed with a happy heart and a satisfied palate.
Franks Corner, Franschhoek
After founding and running the Franschhoek Beer Company together, Alex McCormack, Frank Rodriguez, and Reuben Riffel decided to add this restaurant to their slate. Situating it on Franschhoek’s famous restaurant strip (much of the town’s tourism offering is built around food) balances out the unfortunate lack of an apostrophe in the name. Differentiating the space from some of the other eateries close by – bistros and other themed offerings – ‘Franks Corner Bar and Grill’ is about as mainstream a name as it’s possible to come up with.
If you choose to sit inside, it’s all clean, modern lines, which makes it feel more like an ‘event’ – anniversaries; meals designed to impress – venue than that appellation suggests. Unsurprisingly, and enjoyably, there is the option of a beer tasting with your meal, with all of the Beer Company’s products lined up in small glasses as accompaniment to a delicious upmarket version of steak or fish and chips (above). Such choices are a marker of the establishment’s unwillingness to fix what ain’t broken, but instead to do what it does do very well indeed. Hospitable, attentive, kind staff add to the ambience and experience – you’ll want to go back.
