The Mining Indaba has been filling Cape Town this last
week and it was hard to get a reservation at any of our favourite restaurants as they
were heavily booked, so this gave us a chance to go to this new restaurant,
which has only been open for a few days. Bertus Basson is one of our top chefs,
a man with a wild child reputation for fun and interesting gourmet food, so we
were keen to see what he is doing there. It has a South African traditional
food theme running through the menu, but with lots of twists and surprises, as
we would expect from Bertus, who deconstructs and enhances and uses the best
fresh ingredients. At last there is a place to introduce your guests to
traditional South African dishes with good wine. And of course there are a lot
of other things to do on Spice Route
A lovely
garden setting on the farm
Preparing the
bread and butter boards. With the very moist sour dough bread with a crisp
crust, you get an apricot butter and a snoek pate. A new slant on the local
traditional Afrikaans way of starting a meal with bread, butter and jam.
Some things
for sale in the restaurant
Cookbooks,
aprons on sale and nice booster cushions for small children
The restaurant
has nice clean lines, lime washed walls and floors, a rietdak ceiling (reeds) and
bright touches of colour on cushions, furniture and wall art
We loved the
‘doily’ wall
A simple place
setting with a board for a side plate
The menu,
which changes regularly, showcases modern South African food and features local
produce
We chose a
bottle of Spice Route 2014 Swartland Chenin Blanc and it went very well with
all the food
Ouma Jossie’s
baked tongue with slaphaksteentjies (pickled onions) and two colours of organic
baby beetroot. We see from the menu that these onions were dozing a bit
(slaaphaksteentjies!) They were quite sharp with vinegar. The tongue with the
beetroot was enjoyed very much by our friend Anne
Lynne’s
starter was the Rice flour dusted tempura squid with two sauces, a Cape Malay
curried sauce and a thick creamy mayonnaise, kimchi pickled cucumber and
radishes that were very thinly sliced and topped with fresh chervil. It was
crisp and tender and very, very good. One to return for again and again
John chose the
rich and smooth chicken liver parfait served with sweet onion jam and slices of
toasted mosbolletjie bread.
Lynne and Anne
tweeting and taking photographs while waiting for the next course to arrive
We know we
should have all ordered different main courses, but none of us could resist the
Springbok Tomato Bredie pie. It was served in a hot frying pan, topped with
thin crisp pastry. Inside was very tender springbok, but we missed the
traditional rich tomato gravy in the sauce. It was accompanied by four small
pumpkin fritters dusted with lots of cinnamon. They were more like light
poffertjes and added just the right spicy note which one always expects in
Tomato Bredie. A very good deconstruction. The lightly pickled onion salad was
an extra, but we were not sure why it was there. Perhaps as a relish. The
topping of roasted sunflower seeds added good texture.
We tried to
resist dessert, but two of us decided to share the deep fried camembert. The
frying made it soft but, sadly, the cheese was very unripe and therefore didn’t
have much flavour. It was served with squares of watermelon konfyt, chopped
nuts and a date puree
John
(chocoholic) could not resist trying the Chocolate fondant, which came hot and
oozy as it should. it was made with good dark bitter chocolate with the
accompanying caramel ice cream and crushed honeycomb adding the sweetness
A decorated
wall niche
A cool
fountain in the garden
© John &
Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015
