Eat Out Awards: A fabulous event, superb catered food, but still a Cape-centric love fest

The revamped Eat Out Awards function was a flawless event and a resounding statement by New Media and Eat Out’s backers, Woolworths, that they intend to remain the bastion of restaurant awards in South Africa.

Much of previous criticism of the awards had been of the event itself, and that is the aspect of it that clearly shows that they listened to those criticisms. Monday night in Cape Town was a showstopper for the restaurant industry, and a very happy occasion for all of us who love restaurants and the food they serve us.

They got two things very right: Nathan Clarke of Test Kitchen Fledglings as the Eat Out Rising Star. I wrote of him last December: “The smiling face of it all while we were there for lunch was Melody van Gesselleen, once mentored by the late lamented Frank Swainston at Constantia Uitsig, while head chef Nathan Clarke, whose talent far outweighs his shyness, steered a kitchen of astonishingly young people.” And Franck Dangereux as the Lannice Snyman Lifetime Achievement Award winner. I wrote this about him last May. True high points of a wonderful evening.

This is all rather personal for me, having been the self-appointed critic-in-chief of these awards for a very long time. (Somebody had to do it.) But the best thing is that they listened. And acted. And this is a statement of respect for that.

But this is not to say that I do not have criticisms.

I do have to ask myself: yes, they got certain things very right, but what about the rest? And “the rest”, of course, is the nitty gritty: who won, and is the mix and balance right?

There were very few black-owned restaurants in the mix. Luxury eateries owned by powerhouse groups still dominated the top six. There were few truly exciting surprises; nothing that would have had us yelling, “Now that’s something they’ve never done before!” In content, all rather same-same, really.

My own biggest criticism of the Eat Out Awards always was, and still is, the breakdown of award winners by region or city. And that is where things fall apart. Yet again, the results are massively weighted in favour of the Western Cape and its capital city, Cape Town. Yet again, Johannesburg and Durban get a look-in, but hardly anything more than that little peek into how things happen at the Cape.

I know what they think: that Cape Town and its proximal environs really do have nearly all of the top restaurants, and it does not require a degree in rocket science to figure out why anyone would come to this conclusion.

But there was exceedingly scant evidence for them having delved anything more than superficially into the Joburg restaurant scene, and ditto for Durban or anywhere else. My first prize would have been clear evidence that their judges, and their system of finding good restaurants, would have unearthed some lovely surprises. Because the restaurants are there. 

There’s at least one Joburg restaurant that perfectly fits the model that Eat Out likes to pursue: fancy food on artsy plates, gorgeously paired wines, the kind of eatery which, were it in Cape Town, would be seen in the same category as many of the big winners. At the very least, Darren O’Donovan’s Embarc deserves one star. But he remains out of view of the judges. It is small, and on a street corner, and if this is why it is deemed unworthy, then there’s something wrong with the judging, not the restaurant.

There are others, and I was hoping that Eat Out would help us out by thoroughly exploring the Joburg scene and telling us all about them. They did somehow find Candice Philip’s Cyra restaurant, and good for them.

So why are they unable to source more Golden City restaurants? For one thing, it’s clear that they aren’t trying hard enough, or are asking the wrong people. Maybe they should set up two or more judging panels, with a Joburg-Pretoria panel of local experts tasked to find 2o or 30 places worth one or more stars? One for Durban and environs too, and then of course there’s the largely ignored Rest Of The Country. (There are a handful of exceptions.)

But I think the problem is what Eat Out sees as the epitome of a good restaurant. And it’s clear to see. The top winners are all about lots of expensive detail. Faan daaning. Multiple-course, show-offy menus. Pairings. Somms. (Awful abbreviation of sommelier, a perfectly good word.) Plates so gorgeous that as soon as you put your fork in you’ve destroyed a work of art and are going to hell. Gorgeous decor, darling.

For goodness’ sake. If superb food is served in a pondok, it should be celebrated. Or something in between all of that. What Eat Out needs to do is own up to the truth, that their awards are for the richest sector of South African society, and that they have no interest whatsoever in what the riff raff are eating when they go out at night.

This doesn’t mean they should dole out awards to the Wimpy and your local Golden Lion, but there really is a world of eateries out there that are doing something worth celebrating. In some of them the decor may be less than spectacular but there’ll be something on their plates worth telling your friends about. They don’t bother to find us those.

I think it’s down to the scoring system. If there are only points categories for the kind of things you find in a faan daaning palace, then that is what you’re going to end up with, and nothing else.

To quote a friend, they said sorry and brought us flowers. But the changes, in the end, are superficial. And as ever in a relationship, it’s what happens the next day that matters.

And, as a chef friend remarked to me on Monday night, “Michelin is coming.” DM

Here are all the star winners at the 2025 Eat out Awards:

1 star

Belly of the Beast (City Bowl, Cape Town)

Cavalli Restaurant (Somerset West)

Chefs Warehouse at Maison (Franschhoek)

Chefs Warehouse at Tintswalo Atlantic (Hout Bay, Cape Town)

Creation Wines Tasting Room (Hemel-en-Aarde Valley)

Culinary Table (Lanseria)

Eike (Stellenbosch)

Ëlgr (City Bowl, Cape Town)

Farro (Botrivier)

Galjoen (City Bowl, Cape Town)

Hōseki (Stellenbosch)

Kapokbos (Bonnievale)

Le coin Français (Franschhoek)

Les Créatifs Restaurant (Bryanston, Johannesburg)

Marble Restaurant Johannesburg (Rosebank, Johannesburg)

Meraki by Charlie Lakin (Hillcrest, eThekwini)

Nevermind (Cape St Francis)

Orangerie at Le Lude (Franschhoek)

Post & Pepper (Stellenbosch)

Restaurant Klein Jan (Tswalu)

Reverie Social Table (Observatory, Cape Town)

Rykaart’s Restaurant at Longridge Wine Estate (Stellenbosch)

Scape at Vrymansfontein (Paarl)

Spek & Bone (Stellenbosch)

Table Seven (Salt River, Cape Town)

The Chefs’ Table (Umhlanga, eThekwini)

The Red Room by Chefs Warehouse (City Bowl, Cape Town)

The Table at De Meye (Stellenbosch)

The Test Kitchen Fledgelings (Woodstock, Cape Town)

Upper Union (City Bowl, Cape Town)

Vuur Goose Island (Stellenbosch)

Zioux (Sandton, Johannesburg) 

2 stars

Beyond (Constantia, Cape Town) 

Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia (Constantia, Cape Town)

Chorus (Somerset West)

Clara’s Barn (Stellenbosch)

Epice (Franschhoek)

Faber at Avondale (Paarl)

Fermier (Pretoria)

Foxcroft (Constantia, Cape Town)

Mertia (Stellenbosch)

Ouzeri (City Bowl, Cape Town)

Protégé (Franschhoek)

Rust en Vrede (Stellenbosch)

Salon (Woodstock, Cape Town)

The Jordan Restaurant with Marthinus Ferreira (Stellenbosch)

The Pot Luck Club Cape Town (Woodstock, Cape Town)

The Waterside Restaurant (V&A Waterfront, Cape Town)

Wolfgat (Paternoster)

3 stars

Dusk (Stellenbosch)

Fyn (City Bowl, Cape Town)

La Colombe (Constantia, Cape Town)

La Petite Colombe (Franschhoek)

Pier (V&A Waterfront, Cape Town)

Salsify at the Roundhouse (Camps Bay, Cape Town)

The LivingRoom at Summerhill Guest Estate (Pinetown, eThekwini)