Number 61 and Number 53

This weekend I dined at the only two restaurants in South Africa to make it onto the prestigious San Pellegrino & Acqua Panna World's 50 Best Restaurants List in 2013. Cape Town's Test Kitchen (Number 61) and Franschhoek's The Tasting Room (Number 53). It was amazing couple of nights!

First night, the Test Kitchen in the Old Biscuit Mill Market. Chef Luke Dale-Roberts opened Test Kitchen in 2010. In 2013 the restaurant made an impressive leap to Number 61 on the 50 Best Restaurants list, climbing up 13 places from Number 74 in 2012. More significantly, Test Kitchen was singled out as the winner of the “One To Watch Award” for 2013. Test Kitchen was also awarded the 2012 Restaurant of the Year and Chef Dale-Roberts the Chef of the Year in 2011 by the Eat Out DSTV Restaurant Awards.

I had tried several times before to make a reservation for Test Kitchen but to no avail. They are usually booked up at least a month in advance and I never know when I will be joining Vince in Cape Town until usually days before. But this time I lucked out. Vince had a dinner with his conference colleagues in Hout Bay and I was thinking I would just do room service at the hotel in Cape Town. I had put my name in on the waiting list for Test Kitchen just for the heck of it and lo and behold, I got a call asking me if 8:00 was okay for a seat at the kitchen bar. Is it? We actually prefer to sit at the kitchen bar and get a bird's eye view of the theater going on in front of us. It is like dinner and a show.

my kitchen bar neighbors chat with the chef

Especially when you are alone ... which I wasn't for long. I met the most delightful Capetonians dining next to me. Jan van Huyssteen, who happens to be the Managing Director of one of our favorite vineyards in Franschhoek, Rickety Bridge, and Cindy Muller, who is the Director of Gold in Cape Town, a newly launched African cuisine restaurant whose opening party I had just read about on Facebook and whose name I had added to my list of places to eat in Cape Town! Small world, n'est-ce pas?

a pig's head! pure theatre

There were several choices of prix fixe menus for dinner, a 3 or 5 Course menu, a 3 or 9 Course Vegetarian menu, a 9 course Discovery menu and a 12 Course Gourmand menu! I opted for the 3 Course menu and I am glad I did. There were so many little extras, an amuse-bouche, an intermezzo, a dessert dessert, ... I could not have eaten more without my back-up man (Vince) to help. Everything was absolutely superb - including the wine pairings. A stand-out accompaniment to my delicious Red Roman sea bream main course was a quail egg ravioli. When I cut open the perfectly cooked ravioli, out came the yolk of a perfectly poached egg. Amazing!!!

Cindy even gave me some recommendations for restaurants in the area of the Cape Town hotel where Vince usually stays so I need never contemplate room service again! Then onward to Franschhoek. I picked Vince up midday on Saturday from his conference in Hout Bay and we drove east to wine country. I had been able to snag a reservation before I left Joburg for The Tasting Room, the restaurant at the auberge where we were staying for a couple of nights, the Relais & Châteaux Quartier Francais.
 

The Tasting Room features the exquisite French and African fusion cuisine of Grande Chef Margot Janse. Among the many awards the restaurant has garnered are the San Pellegrino Top 50 best restaurants awards in 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2002, the No. 2 Restuarant in the 2012 Eat Out DSTV Food Network Restaurant Award, and the Best Restaurant in Africa and the Middle East 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2005.  Margot herself has been distinguished as a Relais & Châteaux Grande Chef and was awarded the Relais Chef of the Year in 2012.

If dining at The Test Kitchen was like a night at the theater, then going to The Tasting Room was like visiting an art museum. The eight course menu was billed as an "African-inspired Surprise Tasting Menu." Each dish was a work of art.

A brush stroke of saffron yellow sauce against a white ceramic plate, an abstract expression of contrasting colored and flavored granitas, a tower of cornbread slices with an elliptical molding of freshly churned butter. I almost felt bad disrupting the creations on the plates placed in front of me. Almost.

Our first three courses, beetroot, dill and cucumber granitas on a buttermilk labne, winter salads made with local greens, and the nettle and Jerusalem artichoke soup and associated wine pairings were the same for the both of us and then ... surprise! We each took a different but complementary fork in the menu.  

A Saldahna Bay oyster dish for me, a black mussel one for Vince. Swartland guineafowl, king oyster mushroom and waterblommetjies seafood entrée for me, a Paradyskloof quail, amasi and sweetcorn one for Vince. Springbok loin main course for me, the Angus lamb cheek and tongue for Vince (whew, lucked out there! No tongue for me.)  Followed by a Dalewood languedoc custard for me and a Dalewood Huguenot cheddar and mebos custard for Vince. For the dessert before the cake and sweets (!) I had a dish made with Madagascan chocolate, cape lemon and holy basil and Vince had one with baobab, coconut, honeybush and caramel! All served with their own different but perfectly paired wines. 

A masterpiece! Un chef-d'œuvre!