On Friday night, we visited The White Room at Dear Me, having been invited to taste the Five Course food and wine pairing menu at this Cape Town restaurant, which has just been placed in the Eat Out top 20 list of best restaurants in South Africa, and is nominated for a place in the top 10. The
timing couldn't have been better
Chef Vanessa Marx is over the moon with joy
at her nomination and, having tasted the food, we think she deserves it. Two of
her dishes really intrigued, amazed and delighted us.
The two tasting menus. We decided to
share the menu and, where there were two alternative dishes, we had one of each
and swapped plates and glasses during the meal. This is not ideal, as the
tasting portions of wine come early on and your partner watches as you demolish
your share before the food arrives!
It is a very white room, peaceful and
serene
First, a bread board with parsley
pesto, sundried tomato pesto, butter and pink salt with good bread. We also
received an amuse of tiny deep fried rice balls (Suppli) with mayonnaise, but
we ate them before we remembered we needed a picture. It happens
Starter No.1: a fresh ceviche of kabeljou, dressed with
lime, chilli and sesame seeds, sprouts and a dash or two of lime mayonnaise. It
was the perfect match for the Colmant Brut Reserve NV MCC, highlighting all its
wonderful flavours
Starter No.2: A very thin slice of
pork terrine ‘mosaic’. It was delicious, but we could have demolished half an
inch in depth! The orange segments and
the crispy pieces of pork were great accompaniments, but we don’t like vanilla
with meat; we find it very cloying. It is easy to avoid on the plate. The
matching wine, Thorne and
Daughters Rocking Horse Cape White 2013 was a new wine
for us. It’s a blend of Roussanne, Chardonnay, Semillon and Chenin blanc from different
vineyards in the Western Cape and is in the oxidised style which we think works
with food, but not without. They are negociants
This was the dish of the day, week and
month for Lynne. It took a while to get one’s head around the combinations, but
when you did, the penny dropped and all the band started to play. It was like
being Peter Rabbit in Mr McGregor’s vegetable garden, demolishing all his baby
vegetables. You start with tiny spring vegetables, perfectly cooked, so they
are still sweet. Then you encounter the cocoa and truffle crunchy ‘soil’,
initially sweet and chocolatey until the earthy truffle kicks in. And then
there is the pond of fresh courgette, pea and mint veloute. Different textures,
different tastes all came together perfectly. The CWG Cederberg Semillon 2010
could not have been a better match; full, elegant and crisply lime, it
highlighted the dish.
Yes, we did eat the next course and
enjoyed the pea and herb risotto very much, especially with the earthy
Crystallum Pinot noir 2009. We cannot always “Bant” at good restaurants
Main Course No.1: S’Kaap tjoppie (Cape
lamb chop) with a rich jus and some interesting vegetable chips, mushrooms and
cream sauce. The Thelema The Mint Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 was as smooth as silk
and the intense fruit really brought out the best in the meat and added some
mint!
Main Course No.2: Poached trout in a
weak broth with seaweed and shiitake mushrooms. This was served with a rather
sweet draught Hakutsuru Sake
Vanessa visits each table with the
dessert. We had a long chat with her about her food and the awards. She has had
this special light box made to shine through the whole honeycomb which is then
melted and poured warm over the dessert.
A very innovative way to present pure
honey
That dessert! So special, so
unexpected and so delicious. Caciotta cheese panna cotta with no sugar added
was more of a nearly set puddle of light cheese cream on the plate. It is
sprinkled with roasted sunflower seeds; freeze dried raspberries which add
piquancy and perfume; and crushed ‘honeycomb’. The warm honey from the comb is
then poured over it. It gives you a mouthful of so many different textures and
flavours and temperatures and is wonderful. Picture before the honey is added
After
the honey. It was served with the D’Aria Lullaby 2013, a NLH made from Semillon
with an RS of 145 gm/l. Its honeyed flavours well matched the dessert. We do
need to compliment the Sommelier Joseph Dafana, who put these matches together
with the food. He will be a huge loss to the White room as he is joining the
new La Colombe. Someone whose career we will watch with interest
The
White Room and Dear Me will be found at 165 Longmarket St, Cape Town
Phone: 021 422 4920
Phone: 021 422 4920
Text and Photographs © John &
Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014
