All change for SA’s top restaurant awards? No. More like business as usual

Eat Out, South Africa’s premier epicurean awards, recently released their star restaurant nominees list for 2025. The contenders will only learn whether they have obtained one, two or three stars at a ceremony in Cape Town on 31 March 2025, but regardless of the ultimate outcome, nomination is commonly considered to be an honour.

It is Eat Out’s first such list since Chef Kobus van der Merwe’s controversial January 2024 Daily Maverick op-ed in which he set out problems pertaining to (among other things) a lack of transparency and scoring system rigour. Over the past year there have been signs that the powers that be at New Media (who own the Eat Out brand) were sincerely seeking to upgrade their offering. The press release accompanying the 2025 selections refers to a “refreshed format” created in response to “extensive consultation with industry stakeholders and diners”. 

All of which implies that changes might have been made. So, how did we end up with a list that is almost identical to that of previous years? And, given that this is what has happened, is business as usual a problem?  

Let me start by saying that I am aware that it was a tough task. I have twice been on the Eat Out judging panel and performed similar roles for Dine Top 100 and Rossouw’s Restaurant Guide. So, I understand that classifying and critiquing food is much more complicated than it sounds. 

I also want it known that I have eaten at most of the restaurants on this year’s list, and that they are all perfectly pleasant. Some (such as Salsify at the Roundhouse and The LivingRoom at Summerhill) are truly magnificent. I adore tasting menus and wine pairings. I have no objection to any of the nominees. 

What bothers me is those that are not on the list. 

The thoughts below are not new. I haven’t written up my position previously, partly because I didn’t want my opinions to sound like sour grapes at no longer being on their panel and partly because Eat Out makes judges sign a non-disclosure agreement. The latter means that I won’t elaborate on internal issues except to say that I have repeatedly raised all the points that follow. And I filled in their 2024 questionnaire. I know that I am not the only one to highlight the problems. Over and over again. Every year the same concerns are raised and ignored. 

Stuck record that I am, I propose to offer up this year’s variation on the theme. By my calculations (and please tell me where I am wrong, I would love to be wrong) the Eat Out star restaurant nominees for 2025 list includes only one black-owned restaurant (Chef Wandile Mabaso’s Les Créatifs), and of the 56 nominees, only 10 establishments are from outside the Western Cape. 

I know nothing of this year’s thinking beyond what we all read in the press, but it seems as if only certain sorts of luxury and elevated contemporary eateries were deemed eligible for inclusion. Or, if others were considered, points were awarded for having — or deducted for not having — the sort of accoutrements that only such upmarket establishments have. 

Basically, only those that fit a 19th century Eurocentric definition of restaurant appear on the 2025 list. This sort of restaurant can be wonderful, but it is not the only kind of wonderful.

Such a selection leaves an unsavoury, elitist bad taste in the mouth. Do the organisers think that posh nosh is somehow “better” and more worthy of awards than other sorts of eating out? Casual everyday eateries, delicious dives and food trucks with a few plastic chairs are all places where great cooking and service can and does occur. One of my favourite food experiences of 2024 was at Something Smoked in Chiawelo, Soweto, but its wooden picnic tables outside a township family home make the eatery unlikely ever to receive recognition from Eat Out. I often remember the superb skuinskoek at Local is Lekker in Pofadder but I know that they will never be noticed by New Media’s gourmet great and good.

I am not for a moment suggesting that simpler settings and fine dining/luxury should be judged in a jumbled single list. We need to develop criteria for differentiating and then assessing different types of eatery. We should then distribute awards within those categories. 

Fine dining/ luxury establishments should be judged against each other with the best being awarded the crown in that group. The same is true of more everyday options. It is perfectly possible to categorise eateries by the purpose they play in our lives. We can and should look at venues in terms of what the chef set out to achieve. Judge like with like. 

Mkhize’s Rooftop in KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal is a brilliantly stylish shisa nyama. Sette Bello at The Italian Club in Germiston makes superb pizzas. They fill similar roles in our lives so assess them in a single casual contemporary category. What we want from Bedford Bunny in Lenasia on a Thursday night when we are too tired to cook is different from the meal we go for when celebrating a landmark wedding anniversary. What we need is recognition of great cooking and wonderful service in a wide range of spheres rather than an underlying assumption that only posh can be good. 

The marked absence of black-owned restaurants on the list can in large part be attributed to broader inequality in South African society. Many skilled, experienced and innovative black chefs would love to open their own upmarket establishments. While raising money from investors is very difficult for all chefs and restaurateurs, it is especially difficult for black chefs. The result is that some of our most talented and creative culinarians end up in short-term residencies or pop-ups rather than the sort of permanent restaurants eligible for inclusion in the Eat Out list. 

While this might account for the absence of chefs such as Vusi Ndlovu and his Edge concept from the 2025 Eat Out nominees list, it doesn’t explain how chef-patron Moses Moloi and his Johannesburg restaurant Gigi failed to make the cut. One has to wonder whether the judges struggled to fit modern African cuisine into the Escoffier-based criteria for what constitutes a “good” restaurant. 

Gigi not being on the list has caused a great deal of distress among diners in Johannesburg, but versions of the same sadness have happened many times before. Every year people who don’t live in Cape Town or the winelands complain that their favourite food spots have been overlooked. Well actually, only people in Joburg complain. Everyone else has long since accepted that they will never be recognised by Eat Out. The chefs in these areas find affirmation in compliments from their customers rather than the sparkly party of an awards ceremony. 

These issues are all intertwined. The kind of restaurants that score highly within the current criteria are better suited to provinces with tourist dollars and/or eateries that exist as part of broader businesses such as wine farms and hotels. Restaurants in provinces that survive entirely on local money tend to have a different, simpler style. Not better or worse. Just different. We like different. Different gives us the glorious Congolese mikate with peanut pili pili at Artüro Afro-Latino tequila bar in Melville, Johannesburg. Different is the achingly elegant, plant-forward perfection of Chef Mpho Phalane’s Food I Love You at Constitution Hill, Braamfontein. Different is even the madly retro-chic, flambée absolutely everything approach (think Chateaubriand, crêpes Suzette) at Basil’s in Polokwane. Different ought to be encouraged and celebrated, not ignored.

Does any of this matter? Aren’t there bigger problems in the world? Yes and no. Chefs working in genres that are deemed unworthy of consideration or in provinces that never win are acknowledged every time a diner delights in their work, but food and hospitality are significant sectors of the economy, so fair, inclusive assessment is important. Awards do have an impact on business. They do put extra bums on seats, and in these tough times every bum counts. 

Chefs and cooks work long hours at high-skill, high-stress, often low-paid tasks. At every price point there are significant culinary cultural workers. They deserve to have their labours treated with respect.  

The press release says: “For nearly three decades, the Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards has set the gold standard for South African culinary excellence, honouring the visionary chefs and dedicated teams who deliver unforgettable experiences.” 

But it hasn’t and doesn’t. It has honoured a small subset of those who do so. I love that subset, but I also understand that culinary excellence is a many-splendoured thing. Unlike the Eat Out Awards. DM