Great taste!

Slow Food Mother City loved Taste of Cape Town, a five-day celebration of cuisine in a festive atmosphere on the Rhodes High School fields in Mowbray. Nineteen of Cape Town’s top restaurants made for plenty of celebrity chef spotting (“It’s Margot!” *squeal*) — ja, we are foodies after all.

Quite a few of these chefs used local ingredients and techniques. A highlight was Grande Provence’s warm ballontine of Elgin free range chicken with white onion risotto (see moody photo below). Another winner was from Signal (at Cape Grace) – cumin-crusted springbok loin with a smoked potato and goat’s cheese samoosa, elegantly combining the soft, smoky venison with a glammed-up local favourite. Their dessert – a pistachio pavlova served with rooibos and honey ice-cream – was also divine.

Elgin free range chicken on compostable plates

World-renowned Margot Janse of Le Quartier Français complemented her braised lamb breast with white bean and buchu puree and apricot blatjang (chutney). Neil Jewel impressed as usual with his homegrown charcuterie and once unpopular (but very French) cuts like pork knuckle, pig’s cheek and tongue were proudly served by various restaurants. GOLD restaurant went all out on the local with Cape Malay curry, morog (traditional greens) and smoked snoek (as sustainable as it gets) on the menu. Even Nobu avoided the Japanese-traditional tuna for yellowtail sashimi.

All of these were beautifully plated on compostable crockery made from sugar cane bagasse – really outstanding, guys.

This year the zjooshy restaurants were complimented by small producers including Blue Sky Organics, with their various olive products; Willow Creek, with top-notch local olive oil; ever popular Pesto Princess; La Petite France and their true’s-bob camembert; By Nature, which stocks the best pistachios in South Africa, from the Northern Cape; and Get Stuffed with all their locally sourced cheeses. Also there was Oded’s Kitchen, with a wide range of preserves. Oded Schwartz will be hosting a preserving course for Slow Food Mother City on 10 April – why not sign up?

Lewis manning Oded's preserves stand

Oh, and we didn’t even mention the wine! With about 30 local estates represented, we can only marvel that we live in Cape Town, with so many great wines, red and white, grown and produced within 200kms of our homes. After all that, it was impossible to go home without a cappucino made from African Fair Trade beans from the Bean There stand – the perfect ending to a tasty evening.