Ramenhead Pete’s burgeoning empire takes a new turn

Kaise ki tray at FYN. (Photo: Bruce Tuck)

By Tony Jackman

9 Dec 2022

Peter Tempelhoff is right at the top of the pile of South Africa’s leading chefs. No one can hold a candle to him. And the names of his two (but soon more) restaurants exemplify his singular way with food perfection.

Fine things happen to good people who go above and beyond the obvious in a quest for the extraordinary. Having watched Peter Tempelhoff’s stellar career since his light truly began to shine under the watchful, canny eye of the late hotelier Liz McGrath, it was a rare treat to find myself at the FYN/beyond table at the recent Eat Out Awards. Now, it turns out, much is happening on the Tempelhoff restaurant front.

In July he and colleague Ashley Moss posted photos on social media of their spectacular splurge on ramen in Japan, and the result of that wonderful excess culminated this week in the launch of Ramenhead, a ramen shop, though it is much more than that, on the ground floor below FYN in central Cape Town.

“We’ve brought in a super cool machine from Japan that makes fresh noodles and gives you different styles of ramen,” he told TGIFood this week. “Pork, chicken, mazesoba (ramen without broth), etc.”

It’s called Ramenhead, suggesting ramen junkies, à la motorhead or dieselhead, and there are “posters all over the toilet walls, a pool bar, a lounge outside, a retail side with apparel; it’s more of a lifestyle brand that you could pop into another space”.

Ramenheads: Peter Tempelhoff with Ashley Moss. (Photo: Bruce Tuck)

That, I suggested, sounded eminently franchisable. Was that the plan? After a pause Tempelhoff confided that a second would open at the V&A Waterfront next September, which brings two of the country’s top chefs into that waterside arena, now that David Higgs is set to open a branch of his stylish Jozi fire pit, Marble, in a rooftop Waterfront space. I chatted briefly to Higgs while dining at Marble in Rosebank the other night, but more of that next week.

I asked Tempelhoff, somewhat cheekily, if Jozi was in his sights, given that the city’s top restaurants are packed every night and it’s hard to get a table without booking ahead. After an audibly pregnant pause he said quietly, “Not right now. No plans.” Well. A Tempelhoff palace in Joburg would be a goldmine. Joburg is where Big Things are starting to happen in the restaurant world and those diners have spare cash to splash around.

Meanwhile at beyond, his restaurant at Buitenverwachting in Constantia, there’s a scorching new Wagyu experience in association with Ken Forrester who has quietly been breeding a wagyu herd while making very fine wine.

Wagyu butcher’s tray at beyond. (Photo: Andy Lund)

“Ken Forrester called me and said, ‘Pete, I’ve got some wagyu’. I said bring it in. He’s giving us exclusivity on it. It’s called Cape Wagyu and the quality is just superb.” The charismatic Forrester once had what was once one of Jozi’s most fabulous restaurants, Gatriles, and my visits there in the Eighties are still among my most memorable dining experiences.

“Ken vouched for it, saying it is probably the best wagyu in the country. And it is bloody nice stuff. So we’re taking interesting, cool cuts, presented in a cool box with an ice pack at the bottom like a butcher’s tray of wagyu. It’s been running a couple of weeks now, every day.”

And, while some cuts are priced at R2,500, there are others at a relatively cheap R250. That’s low for wagyu.

The venue for the wagyu experience is Buitenverwachting, where legendary Cape chef Etienne Bonthuys once reigned. Later, Thomas Sinn was there and more recently Edgar Osojnik who had a tenure of more than two decades. The latter two were part of the trend in the Nineties of importing continental chefs (in the sense of “of Europe”) to helm fine dining restaurants of the kind that lured European tourists. Venues such as Bosman’s at the Grand Roche and Buitenverwachting were a part of this fashion, and not least among the galaxy of cheffy superstars was Harald Bresselschmidt who went on to open the lauded Aubergine in Cape Town’s City Bowl.

Does anyone, even in that stellar league, quite match Tempelhoff? His is the only fare I have eaten on any table in South Africa that has been flawless every time. Impeccable. And every time, no matter how good the food looks, it has always tasted even better. How does that earn FYN two stars out of three? Were they counting damask tablecloths? Silver forks? Ducks in a row on the wall?

Tempelhoff will not be drawn on any of this, however, being the gentleman he is, and genuinely humble to boot. When I ask him about his stress levels, given the intense nature of the job, and competing with the world’s best chefs, he says simply, “A lot of pressure goes into it, Tony. It’s what it is and I’m grateful for the little time in the sun we have.”

Fine FYN fare. Heirloom tomatoes, abalone, avocado; ostrich egg chawanmushi, kaeshi, royal caviar; dashi poached langoustine, mango and bamboo salsa, coconut yoghurt, curry vinaigrette; chokka, truffle, ink mayonnaise. (Photo: Bruce Tuck)

At the fine tables of FYN, you’ll occasionally find Bonthuys himself, now in his 70s. Tempelhoff did not dine at Buitenverwachting in either Bonthuys or Sinn’s days there, but he did know Osojnik’s cuisine. Being in the business means chefs at this or any level don’t get much time to visit the restaurants of their peers, but Tempelhoff does find the time to do so, and only this week had a superb sirloin on the bone at his friend Giorgio Nava’s Carne; he’s another Cape chef I admire.

The simpler side of his love for cooking is indulged in at beyond, reflecting the part of him that does not need everything to be as refined as it is at FYN or had been at his earlier tenures such as at the Greenhouse at the Cellars-Hohenort where we first saw him shine. I know that McGrath, whom I loved and miss dearly, would be enormously proud to see his success today.

Tempelhoff always mentions McGrath as the mentor she was, and during our wide-ranging interview he mentioned every one of his senior colleagues both at FYN and beyond.

We might wonder how important the awards and gongs are to him now that, as he says, “I’ve hit my 50s”, and the answer is interesting.

“In the past I have pushed openings to November so that I can be eligible for next year’s awards. I’ve always tried to tick all the boxes. But for the last couple of years I’ve thought, you know what, does it really matter? I’ve hit my 50s now and realised that I need to do this for myself and my team.”

Kaise ki tray at FYN. (Photo: Bruce Tuck)

He doesn’t hang out with all the other top 50 chefs in the world; they’re all too busy. In that echelon of creating works of art on plates, with every ingenious stroke of the chef’s brush, yet more expectation is demanded by the tremulous diner, and I do often wonder when we will all tire of it, interrupt the procession of fine dishes and wines desperately trying to match them, slam a hand on the table and yell, “Enough! Just bring me one plate of decent food!”

So I did ask the question: Are diners growing weary of endless degustation menus?

“Yeahhh…” he replied, a trifle hesitantly. “I’d say an experiential menu is important but there shouldn’t be so many of them. We do it at FYN but not at beyond or Ramenhead. It’s a way to express where you are in life as a chef but I think people are growing weary of it. When we opened FYN, we shortened the experience to two and a half hours, not the four-hour experience. We bring out multiple courses at once.”

Somewhere in between the highbrow 12-course meal that starts at 7pm and ends at 11, when you can barely find breath to chat politely to the uber driver, is a better “experience”. And let’s not even mention the 12 different wines that have confounded your overworked palate. And you know the uber driver is thinking, “yoh, this guy’s been in a pub all day”. DM/TGIFood

The launch party for Ramenhead was on Thursday December 8 but it opens officially to the public on Tuesday, December 13.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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