TGIFood

Shy ingredients shine at the Cape’s new restaurant to beat

Pecan pie, sort of. Actually, ancient grains. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

1 Nov 2024

A rare thing has happened on the Cape dining scene. A restaurant has emerged that manages to offer high-end cuisine in a space where you feel you’re in a vibey bistro. Let’s hope it sets a new trend for this level of dining out.

All of these “fine dining” restaurants that I get to “experience” are not really my thing. I respect them. I admire them. I’m even somewhat overawed by them. But give me a good bistro or grill house any day over 14-course tasting menus at eye-melting prices.

At the supposedly highest level, you may pay close to R2,000 a head for the chef's menu, and almost as much again for a wine pairing. (One or two are even higher.) With some exceptions, most of them rely on moneyed tourists to fill their chairs, for whom the prices, after conversion of dollars, sterling or euros to rand, are not nearly as eye-moistening as they are for those of us earning in the rand.

There are more reasonable options — and I do find these prices unreasonable. The thinking when pegging prices to courses is evidently less along the lines of “let’s see how pocket-friendly can we make this for our guests” than “let’s see how much we can get away with”.

Which is where COY enters the restaurant scene in the Mother City, and the approach is nothing like the standard at féncy nosh palaces. Which does not mean you pay bistro prices here. But you are paying for the high level of cuisine on offer, and you will be offered seven courses, some of which are almost incidental (one is a bread course, for instance).

The view towards the mountain. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The price for the seven-course set menu at COY is R895 a head. While this is not cheap, it is substantially less than many of the tasting menus at those world-famous places that vie for all the awards and often win them.

COY is Ryan Cole’s new restaurant that emerges from the massive success of his Salsify at the Roundhouse, which itself is a relatively grand affair — relatively, in that while it is impressive, the structure and history of the Roundhouse have been respected.

The view from COY restaurant towards the bay. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The setting at COY is exceptional. It’s at the V&A Waterfront, but not in any of the places where you might look for a restaurant. It was once a gin joint of sorts and an art gallery. It’s between things — on one side is the Cape Grace Hotel, and across the bridge to the other side is the TimeOut market, the aquarium et al. To its right as you face it is the old Dry Dock, dilapidated trawler and all. They recommend you get your uber to drop you on the Cape Grace hotel side. Views are fabulous — serene waterside scenes in daylight; twinkly lights towards Table Mountain and boats bobbing by at night.

Stuffy and starchy are not necessarily more attractive than funky and jazzy. The look and feel of COY suggests nothing about what is to come on your plate. It has the ambience of a bistro; it’s cool and unfussy, the kind of place I feel at home in. I never feel at home at “those places”; I feel like an imposter.

The interior. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

And with its advent on the Mother City’s dining scene, COY immediately becomes the restaurant at the Cape to beat: classy without being fussy; fine fare that somehow manages to be unpretentious. There are no theatrics (which, happily, you won’t find at Salsify either, other than that creepy Chamber experience on arrival).

A necessary adjustment: while it is a new Ryan Cole restaurant, the running and the cuisine at COY are under the stewardship of two head chefs, Geoff Abrahams and Teenola Govender, who were known for their food takeaway business Better Together during Covid. Their menu at COY is a resounding winner.

Although there are seven courses, you don’t feel overwhelmed. Course 1 is simply a few elegant snacks; course 2 is bread. So that leaves only five more substantial courses. You then choose one of three cold starters, followed by one of three hot opinions.

Portions of starters are not huge, but nor are they mean; so you get to enjoy them thoroughly, without wondering whether you’ll have room for your main course. Which is reasonably substantial, but not forbiddingly large. They have the balance exactly right, and few fine dining menus with many courses achieve this.

Snack nibbles tantalise you into the mood for a leisurely dinner; the crunchy fermented amadumbe sourdough bread roll is accompanied by spreads of kefir butter with black onion salt and guava konfyt. Bokkom, the West Coast dried fish, makes an appearance.

The ‘Snacks’ course of smoked Stanford cheese, tahini, roasted shiitake mushroom, red lentils, blatjang (chutney) and cashew. Right: amadumbe sourdough bread roll with accompaniments inspired by regional specialities. (Photos: Tony Jackman)

From the cold starters menu (three choices) I requested the venison with sour fig and pickled pear, a tartare-like melange of gorgeous textures in a beautiful slim pile which was utterly divine and the moment I realised that this was a special meal. (Wait until the lamb arrives further down…)

A splendid cold starter, left, and hot, right. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The ox tongue hot starter with beef tallow, black rice and ras el hanout was no less impressive and I was feeling spoilt. It only occurred to me later that I had gone meat all the way. Even the fat — tallow is everywhere on fancy menus at the moment, even chicken tallow. In this case it was beef but in the Karoo we’re all about mutton tallow. A trend towards cooking food in rendered meat fat is one of the more interesting developments in recent years.

Lamb is my thing, but the course that arrived next knocked me off my feet. This meat was no less than magnificent. Lamb just doesn’t get better than this. The cut was lamb rump and alongside it was a little pot of lamb’s neck potjie. Good as it was, it just wasn’t needed; any lamb rump cooked this perfectly needs no distractions. (I do commend them, though, for putting a potjie dish on their menu. Perhaps offer it in its own right?)

This is my new benchmark for lamb. Perfect. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

With it was pap (yes, mielie pap) as ART — fine, smooth, and glorious, and the perfect accompaniment — as well as spinach puree and a butternut crisp. The intrigue of the sauce was explained by its name: skopo jus, made from the slow cooking of a beast’s head.

An intermediate dessert brought some respite from all of the meat I had asked for. (Stupid, perhaps — my daughter’s seared linefish earlier looked sublime).

Tea With Ma, left, and burnt banana creme, malty and delicious. (Photos: Tony Jackman)

Delicious sweet things followed but our tall Namibian sommelier, Eben Mupupa, had wined us so generously that things had become a tad vague by this point. I’ll show you a picture of them if you like…

Fascinating desserts. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The Roundhouse. Photo: Tony Jackman)

Meanwhile at Salsify at the Roundhouse, in one of the city’s oldest buildings (circa 370 years old), the main curved dining room is not at all over-decorated, design budget evidently having rather been spent on ceiling decorations and, not least, the “preservation chamber” you enter on arrival. All rather creepy and suitably spooky, given claims that ghosts wander these peculiar halls.

The rather scary Preservation Chamber. If you survive they serve you lunch. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

We spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at Salsify, and I was pleased that the feel of the dining room with its curved wall of windows looking towards the Atlantic felt surprisingly little different from the one-time tearoom in the same space where a little boy sat with his parents somewhere in the Sixties washing down a plate of fish and chips with a cola tonic and lemonade. That little boy would not quite have comprehended his first taste of what happens at the Roundhouse today.

You enter through a preservation chamber. Were we to be embalmed lest the experience be too much and we pass out, out of sheer astonishment at the majesty of every morsel? Or were there ghosts lingering here who would rather we dined at Salon, La Colombe, anywhere but their private hideaway now invaded by pearl-draped madams and Volvo-driving men of business?

A man who brought Riff Raff to mind painstakingly plated a tiny tartlet of roasted artichoke and porcini jam on shortbread deliciously enhanced with Kokstad truffles, produced by Max Bastard, who recently wrote this excellent piece for TGIFood — this while we sipped a cocktail of honey mead and Kalahari truffle. The honey was from Zambia, we were told, in a slightly hushed tone that suggested this was important. I’m not sure what this tells us about the myriad honeys (I mean real ones) there are throughout South Africa, but if Zambian honey trounces all of that, who am I to question it. Of course we must not be so small minded as to eschew anything foreign, but it seems a lot of trouble and travel to go to given how conscious we are of the planet.

Here, where Lord Charles Somerset once roamed and Dr James Barrie was still managing to hide the truth that she was a woman (it would only be ascertained on her death), the repast was extensive and top drawer, but again, despite the high level of cuisine and presentation, they’ve managed to achieve a smart environment for high-end dining in which you feel comfortable and not overly fussed over. And there are variations of the menu to suit different pockets.

It’s the perfect restaurant to recommend to visitors who want to experience a true vintage gem of Cape architecture while also enjoying a fine example of the edgy modern cuisine the city is becoming known for. I say “becoming” because there is still not enough local fare on offer on the city’s menus, and while some eateries at this end of the spectrum are moving towards more and more local ingredients used with ingenuity, many are not. Yet.

Some examples from Cole’s menu at Salsify testify to this, even though, as at what seems to be almost all of the city’s top eateries, there are Japanese and other world influences.

A coal-roasted oyster is flavoured with spekboom and ginger; charred West Coast abalone (perlemoen) is matched by a delectable squid ink custard and Madagascan caviar, said to be the closest quality caviar to us.

Abalone. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Cold-smoked yellowtail, one of our finest local fish, is enhanced by amasi whey, dill and sorghum — and while dill is arguably the least South African of all herbs, it is a fit for fish. Somewhere there’s a wood sorrel palate cleanser.

Namibian crab cake. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

A Namibian crab cake is paired with a roosterkoek hidden in a cute paper parcel. Butter-fried Cape bream is served with potato noodles, a dressing of mussel velouté and a squid emulsion, topped with deep-fried lime leaves.

Wines are superbly matched all the way. Gravitas glass Pas de Nom accompanies a parsley potato dumpling, Jerusalem artichoke and ox heart slivers. Springfield Méthode Ancienne Chardonnay 2016 is up with the Cape bream.

Pork jowl at Salsify. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

A Badenhorst Ramnasgras cinsault arrives ahead of the most compelling dish of the day. I’m always looking for a standout dish that comes out of nowhere and stops your palate in its tracks. Here it is: pork jowl cured in a water bath for 10 hours and then steamed in sake. Contrasted with delightful crunchiness. The Business! The kind of dish a reputation is built on. Flesh so soft that no chewing is required. There’s a pork skin crumb, and there are sultanas and a celeriac dressing — the paucity of our dried fruit on menus is rather sad, so it’s good to see something represented.

Wagyu from the Karoo. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The marbling of the Karoo wagyu is incredible. This is “pap en vleis” and there’s a beef shin “pie” on the side (in the sense of a cottage pie), baked rice, and a quenelle of chakalaka (that must be a first) and a beef shin jus. Ingenious.

Here’s a pre dessert of Madagascan vanilla shortcake with guava sorbet, Madagascan vanilla foam and a “Jelly Tot”.

Pecan pie, sort of. Actually, ancient grains. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Finally, a pecan pie. Of sorts. But instead of anything you might recognise as a pecan pie, this is a “celebration of ancient grains”. Pecans from Prieska in the Northern Cape. Cherries from last summer, preserved in Port and Maldon salt. Ice cream of “everything that goes into pecan pie”. Delicious and clever as it was, though, I just got nothing of what I love about a pecan pie. Rather not call it that, as it creates some kind of expectation even if you do appreciate the inventiveness of it.

Ryan Cole is the chefs’ chef. He’s loved by his peers. His food is no less lovable. DM

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