Salt Restaurant
A room with a view
Salt restaurant 's setting is as good as it gets.
Whoever said "The better the view, the worse the food" has clearly never eaten at Salt restaurant on Cape Town's Atlantic seaboard. But you have to sit in the best seat in the house. It's the window seat aligned with the middle point of the bay where you can smell the decadent whiff of international travel.
Together with crashing waves, yelling seagulls, three lonely ships on the horison, and hypnotic sunset views worthy of a Rothko painting, Salt restaurant in Bantry Bay is Dante's Paradiso (without the eagle). It's equally a place for off-the shoulder silk dresses, sex on the marble floor corridors and skydiving from the parking lot into the icy Atlantic in your polka-dot bikini.
But tonight I am here for their monthly gourmet food and wine pairing evenings where restaurant manager and wine expert, Gidi Caetano chooses a fancy pants-y wine estate so she and the chefs can wildly experiment, so that simpleminded folk like Amstel Adams and I can learn what goes yummy with what.
We kick off with tangy gorgonzola, caramelised pecans, fresh pear and cos salad with a secret dressing I would sell my hair to Kashmiri brides in Kazakhstan to get the recipe of. It was paired with Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Chenin Blanc 2008. Amstel wolfed down an entire glass. "Nice big glasses," he grins.
Our Norwegian salmon spring rolls with a baby Asian salad and soy dipping sauce is paired with two wines, Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2008 and Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Chardonnay 2008.
Both are pastoral, the Sauvignon Blanc is fragrant like an elderflower growing outside an English farmer's cellar, while the Chardonnay is more buchu rubbed in charcoal, like a Khoisan wedding around a fire in the Matroosberg Mountains. The Chardonnay clashes bitterly with the soy sauce, but of course that is the point, to allow the Sauvignon Blanc to sing. "But they're both f**king sexy wines" beams head chef Dave Winton who is hyper, zesty, zooty and wonderfully fruity. He's done Goa on a full-moon, has spiced up the Tunisian coast, had high tea on the sand dunes of India and is known to prefer lunching with women who collect Champagne. Having lived in 13 different countries in 12 years, he's someone you want at your dinner table, preferably after having made the wondrous food.
We salivate over Dave's Moroccan lamb and wash it down with Kleine Zalze Cellar Selection Shiraz Mourvédre Viognier 2007. Sublime. And for this course Salt plays reggae! "Blackberries,'' announces Amstel.
"Mulberry tart.'' "Deep, rich and velvety, like Leonard Cohen," muses Amstel. "On a break from being a Buddhist.'' "Yes, he's been let out of the monastery for one night.''
"But it's just not good enough to keep him out the monastery permanently!" "It's still very smooth, like the foam whipped up by Bantry Bay boulders.'' "Indeed Amstel, indeed."
Pudding is Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Shiraz 2007 with boerenkaas, chargrilled pear and almond brittle. This wine is comforting, like a hot-water bottle in Sutherland at -5° C. We throw scraps of boerenkaas to the seagulls, diving like fighter bomber pilots. A cheese so delicious has to be shared.
Like phosphorous sparks, the stars catch the sheen of the ragdoll kelp. A chocolate truffle melts in my mouth. And then suddenly it happens, we feel like we're in Portofino having our last meal before we die.
The lights of nearby luxury guesthouse Ellerman Villa on the hill go off. Ah, it's that whiff again, Oprah's just gone to bed.
