Hit-and-miss dining in Cape Town
Eating out in Cape Town can be a hit-and-miss affair. Independent restaurant critic Jean-Pierre Rossouw gives a personal appraisal of his current favourites.
One of the greatest marketing coups of recent times has been to sell the consumer the notion that cornfed beef is somehow better. "Corn/grainfed" is used as a stamp of quality, while the reality is that cattle are naturally grasseaters. A diet of corn leads to a host of health problems (for which we conveniently have antibiotics) but corn does fatten the animal up to create tender steak - and the world has lots of corn to use up. There's now a slowly growing awareness that grassfed beef is preferable, in terms of sustainability, than cornfed. There's also a strong argument that it is better for the animal, and these days most of us profess to prefer our food having lived a decent life.
The reason for this preamble is Cape Town's sudden fixation with meat. As if a backlash to growing media attention on food issues like factory meat from massive feed lots, steakhouses are hip again. It appears to be a natural reaction: as society begins to censor smoking, a love affair with cigars lights up again. High fuel prices? Bring on the Hummer.
The city has long had a few steak dens, some of great longevity, but now, in the space of a few months, Cape Town has at least three new steak specialists, and it seems that they are cottoning on to grassfed as a way to distinguish themselves from the "steak-and-a-side-ofcreamed spinach" variety.
Best steak in town? HQ Restaurant (for Headquarters) is in Heritage Square, operated by the team that brought us Caveau. Like Caveau, HQ also makes great use of the natural warmth and rawbrick beauty of the building, with modern touches like sexy lighting, plush seats and understated colour. They've also installed a beautiful bar with a cocktail list that's well worth exploring at the risk of remembering your wine over dinner. HQ has the city's most concise menu: salad, sirloin, chips. You're asked only two questions: "what wine?" and "how would you like your steak?" The very succinct winelist naturally favours reds, and its brevity is the opposite of the fulsome list at Caveau (which is not available). Choice is an unusually limited commodity at HQ: the steak, too, is one cut only - a sirloin. It comes standard with Café de Paris sauce, no other. The green salad with pine nuts is dressed in only classic vinaigrette.
In other words, the steak had better be very good - and, thick cut from grassfed beef, it is. The butter sauce is immensely beguiling, and the chips are replenished on demand. The menu costs R140, excluding the option of dessert (R25), where you suddenly have many choices, but those I have tried are deeply average.
Is this the best steak in town? As someone who habitually eats his steaks without sauce, often without basting, I'd suggest the answer depends on how much you love the Café de Paris sauce. Nevertheless, the meat is well aged and I, for one, love restaurants that are single-minded - they're more likely to excel in what they offer.
Flesh fest
The owner of 95 Keerom, Giorgio Nava, recently opened a steak specialist, Carne. As attractive as 95 Keerom, and in a similar modern-rustic, inner-city style, upstairs you'll find a lovely cocktail bar (another space that appears back in fashion) while downstairs, in a music-less, enveloping basement room, the plain tables have menus as placemats and, as counterpoint, Philippe Starke Louis Ghost chairs. The winelist is medium in length and well selected, the Italianate menu does offer some (meaty) antipasti and (literally) one or two pastas, but the bulk of it is carne.
I asked the waiter about grassfed beef but he answered with detail about the best in grain- and beer-fed. Some of the meat also comes from Nava's own Karoo farm. Compared to the "sirloin-only" policy at HQ, at Carne you'll find diverse, and some very interesting, cuts like hanger steak (from inside near the kidneys), alla Fiorentina (T-bone), sirloin, rib-eye - as well as wildebeest and quite a few interesting ostrich dishes. Chicken also features.
Tasting the sirloin (R110) and rib-eye (R105), one is struck by the absolutely naked presentation - no disguising the primacy of the flesh. And it is very good, well aged, with fresh and tasty side dishes. I want to believe in grassfed beef for all kinds of reasons. It would really help, though, if it really, absolutely tasted better. Perhaps it does, when side-by-side tasted. For the moment, I will settle for grassfed being at least as flavoursome, with a dollop of virtue for sauce.
Cape Town's Chuck Norris
Another meaty (though not meat-exclusive) encounter is Rumbullion at The Roundhouse. Towards the end of last year, The Roundhouse acquired a new chef in talented young PJ Vadas, and the restaurant's menu has become more precise in flavour and classically focused. The improved Roundhouse is now exclusively open for dinner, while lunch is served downstairs at Rumbullion, which is more of a space than a formal restaurant. Rain or shine (they tell me), the tables are bravely ranged under a free-form tent in the garden, with the option of spilling onto the lawn on clear days.
The winelist is a condensed version of the fantastic one up at The Roundhouse, and, for a restaurant that preaches the gospel of wine, surprisingly polluted with typographical errors. I also saw "brizola" on the meat platter, which can only be braesola. Nit-picking aside, the service is warm and attentive, and the wines are served at appropriate temperatures and in good stemware.
The menu playfully groups the dishes into "chilled," "purveyed," "stacked," and "tossed" - but be warned: Rumbullion is Cape Town's Chuck Norris. Protein is given pride of place. Then there's the portion size. The sandwiches would make Obelix happy, the marrow bones are Rabelaisian, the salads Jurassic. A table of two men next to us saw our (over)order, took fright and downgraded to a sandwich to share.
The sirloin sandwich (R95) consisted of superb bread and fine sirloin, but the whole was poorer than the sum of the parts: the bread very heavy and thick, the thin-cut sirloin too little, the horseradish mayonnaise too creamy, hiding the flavour of the meat further. But the delicious marrow bones (R80) came with fantastic crusty bread (all bread made in-house, and a real highlight of the menu) and an even better parsley and caper salad.
Chef Vadas later explained that the portion sizes were their retort to complaints from some upstairs diners that the tasting menu and general portion size at The Roundhouse was anaemic. Point made, he also mentioned that the menu may settle into a more typical selection of market-fresh items at more usual sizes. I look forward to returning; less to seeing what the Cape winter does to it.
Shabby-chic and caviar
Down the road in Camps Bay, the society set have been very happy to welcome The Grand to the strip. It's "grand" in a lush Belle Époque sense - in other words, shabby-chic (a welcome counter-point on this plastique precinct). Furnishing a house in old wood pieces, drawing pictures on the walls, dropping dozens of roses in vases, scattering lots of comfy cushions and playing a sexy soundtrack certainly gets one in the mood to relax. Unfortunately, the scatty, ultra-cool service tries its best to undo this, and other signs of carelessness (like a gents' without soap) are irritating.
Much of the menu is careless with value too: crayfish pasta (R200); crayfish mayo sandwich (R160); seafood platter for two (R695). You can have a classic like avo ritz (R75) or a shrimp tempura (very good, R75); and while the steak mains (around R130) are tender, the seafood is average to poor. Small winelist, but with good house wines - and then there is the cocktail list and bar snack menu, which is where The Grand excels, with caviar "sq".
Informal comfort
Another eatery with a carefully casual air is Societi Bistro. It used to be in the V&A Waterfront, where it offered a relaxed antidote to the frenetic mall. Having now moved to a welcoming old house at 50 Orange Street, Societi makes the most of its new "homely" base. But it's lost the juxtaposition between informal comfort and the commercialism of the mall. The staff are friendly, though can be over-eager to clear, pour, offer and generally stay busy. Two-course business lunches for R70 are a great idea, and for families they're offering kids' cooking classes.
The regular winelist is bolstered by corporate names (at good prices), and this is supplemented by a limited "special wines" list - with many offered by the glass. Having eaten here twice since their move, I still don't feel like they've settled. The quality of the wide-ranging "Italianate grillhouse" menu - and the portion sizing - is uneven, making you notice the prices too often (mains around R120), though the kitchen does seem to have a dab hand at starches like polenta, pasta and pizza. And it is curious that, with a rambling house and garden, a kids' menu and lots of comfort food, Societi is closed on a Sunday.
Italian imports
Back in the V&A Waterfront, Meloncino offers the information on the menu that its chefs were "imported from Italy" and you do indeed hear Italian spoken by management. It's a beautiful and colourful space, with a prominent bar area, and those mountain views are beautifully framed. Service is drilled and formulaic (your napkin is fairly forced onto your lap), and the menu offers classic Italian as well as pizza.
The stylish setting suggests the food will be closer to the real thing than what you might dread (bearing the location in mind) - and it is decent enough. Of the starters, the zupetta mare is tasty and you get a very generous portion of seafood for R79. Pastas are ok (around R80) and pizza is good, as is the price (R75). All in all, reasonable value in an upmarket venue. Winelist sticks to the safe bets, but covers all the variety bases.
Old Cape naval fantasy
R70-million is a chunk of change to spend on a hotel redesign, and about 10% of that went into the new restaurant at the Cape Grace. They've called it Signal (the noon gun refers), and its reincarnation is as an old Cape naval fantasy - all leather, wood, brass, compasses and murals of 17th century sailing ships. There's a mix of formal white-clothed tables and bare, wooden, bistrostyle tables to sit at (we weren't asked which we preferred on reservation, so remember to ask if you desire a more decorative and classic experience).
While the décor revamp is grandiose, the new menu is comfortably level-headed. It offers a Catholic selection of meals from tapas style (items around R70) through sandwiches and pastas, to formal menu options (mains around R140) and beyond that to dégustation (with wine R650). The plates are well executed but not flamboyant, and the former one.waterfront is now more completely a hotel restaurant than ever before - albeit one of the more genuinely comfortable, with very warm, competent service and a good winelist.
Molecular experiments
As South Africa's first exponent of molecular gastronomy, Richard Carstens has made a quick name for himself, as the Nova menu will tell you: "Chef Carstens... is no stranger to accolades."
Nova is a modern, white-toned space (many say "cool" and mean it both ways). He has modulated the molecular experimentation in the à la carte menu with choices to encourage less daring diners, but many of his plates remain adventurous, notably the dégustation menu (R625 with wine, R325 without). Every menu item comes with a suggested wine and the picks are well-judged and sensible in price. Service can be gauche but is settling in, and the vibe is bright. You can expect lots of ices and foams on the plate, and a Spartan style of description on the menu - after a few courses, there's waning allure in a dish named "pear" or "berries".
I feel that Carstens' cooking has matured; and elaborateness of technique is now well balanced by attention to the purity of the ingredients he uses. Nova should have a date in any food-lover's diary.
RESERVATIONS ESSENTIAL
HQ Restaurant: 100 Shortmarket Street,
Heritage Square. 021 424 8154. Mon-Sat lunch
and dinner.
Carne: 70 Keerom Street. 021 424 3460. Dinner
Mon-Sat
Rumbullion at The Roundhouse: The Glen,
Camp's Bay. 021 438 4347. Lunch Tues-Sun
The Grand: 35 Victoria Road, Camps Bay. 021
438 4253. Tues-Sun lunch and dinner
Societi Bistro: 50 Orange Street, Gardens. 021
424 2100. Monday to Saturday lunch and dinner;
breakfast Tues-Sat
Meloncino: Shop 259, Upper Level, V&A Waterfront.
021 419 5558. Daily lunch and dinner.
Signal: Cape Grace Hotel, West Quay Road, V&A
Waterfront. 021 418 0520. Daily breakfast, lunch
and dinner.
Nova: 70 New Church Street. 021 422 3584.
Dinner Mon-Sat
Photographs by Denver Hendricks
