Grilled Tuna and Mont du Toit Le Sommet 2002

Fettuccine with grilled tuna, seafood tartare and balsamic syrup
(Serves four)

 

600g tuna
250g fresh egg fettuccine
balsamic syrup - recipe follows
seafood tartare - recipe follows
parmesan oil - recipe follows

seafood tartare
9 grilled prawns
16 steamed mussels
12 stuffed green olives (anchovy)
8 black olives
3 pieces spring onions (5cm each)

Chop all the ingredients coarsely, then add salt and pepper to taste as well as a squeeze of lemon and 10ml Tokara olive oil Leccino.

Balsamic syrup
Simmer 80ml honey and 300ml Balsamic vinegar very gently for about one hour until the consistency of syrup has been reached, testing drops by chilling rapidly in freezer.

Parmesan oil
I heaped Tsp Parmesan, chopped
200ml Tokara olive oil Leccino

Warm oil and remove from heat. Add Parmesan cheese and a sprig of thyme. Allow to stand for one hour then strain.

To prepare and Serve
Boil the fettuccine until al dente, drain and drizzle with Parmesan oil. At the last minute, grill the tuna until still rare. Arrange tuna on plate with pasta, alternating the tuna and tartare. Decorate the plate with Parmesan oil, Balsamic syrup and a sprig of garlic chive.

At Tokara Restaurant, right up at the crest of the Helshoogte Pass near Stellenbosch, sweeping views over a vast valley towards False Bay and Table Mountain vie for your attention with what's cooking in the ultramodern kitchen, clearly visible through a gigantic glass wall. It promises a memorable dining experience, and chef Etienne Bonthuys makes sure that's what you get.

His food is best described as modern South African with a heavy French influence but his philosophy is that you can't take yourself - or your food - too seriously. For this reason he loves combining unusual ingredients that surprise people, such as calamari and oxtail or rack of lamb with freshwater crayfish - and his attitude to food and wine combinations is equally unconventional: "When I taste a wine I always play a little game called 'Find the Berry'. Once you've found the berry, you can match it with any food…"

In the case of the Mont du Toit Le Sommet 2002, a complex and full-bodied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Shiraz, Bonthuys followed the instructions on the back label - to serve the wine at 16 or 17°C. "As soon as the wine was chilled, I could really taste the different varieties, even if I didn't necessarily know what they were. Beautiful! And the best thing about chilling a red wine is that you can match it with something unusual. Some people might not believe me, but red wine and fish is a combination that really does work!"

In this particular dish, the tuna is actually the most neutral component compared to the stronger flavours of the prawns, mussels, olives, Balsamic vinegar and Parmesan. As Bonthuys sums up: "It's a very summery dish, it's very easy to make, and it's very, very tasty!"