Whale Cottage Portfolio Blog

A recent blog post by chef, Eat Out Top 10 restaurant judge and owner of Wild Woods restaurant, Pete Goffe-Wood, is the inspiration for evaluating how ready Cape Town’s restaurants are for the World Cup, a mere three months away today, and for becoming world class.

Goffe-Wood wrote that the local restaurant industry is “teetering on the brink of greatness”, and encouraged his colleagues to “make the leap” to offer the “foreign market waiting to be fed, educated and entertained and we must make sure that we give them what they came for”.    Goffe-Wood identified complaints about high food and wine prices, poor service, and inconsistent food quality as being reflective of problems facing the restaurant industry.

He explained how wine-markups of 200 %, whilst creating outrage, is the norm, and that restaurants have to follow wine producers when they increase their prices every year.   Goffe-Wood is critical about the lack of restaurant reviews in “print media”.  He believes that the industry needs “positive input from informed and educated sources”.   Service , he says “is not to be subservient”, and he seeks a “more professional attitude towards the service we provide”.

So what do we as customers say to restaurants in response to Goffe-Wood’s self-analysis, and to guide them to greatness:

1.  First, well done Pete, for acknowledging that not all is perfect, and for wanting to lift the standard for the restaurant industry in Cape Town.

2.  We expect consistency in a restaurant’s food quality, service, and value-for-money, plus an attractive and interesting decor, and an undefined feel-good factor of “I like it here - this is a restaurant for a person like me - I will be back”.

3.  Please answer your phones when we call to make a booking, rather than letting us speak to an answering machine, which may or may not return our call.  Have friendly staff that understand the language we speak, and that can spell a basic name like “Chris”!   Even better, recognise and acknowledge our voice as regulars when we call

4.   Trust us as customers when we have made bookings at your restaurants - confirmation calls are soooo irritating.  Allow a 15 - 30 minute cut-off time, for late arrivers, and then offer the table to the next walk-in.  By all means ban customers if they are habitual late-arrivers, or even worse, non-arrivers!

5.  Retain your staff - we see staff turnover even in the best of establishments, and it is often the staff relationships that maintain the relationship consistency and that influence the service perception we have of your restaurants.  Please do not let your new waiter train on me!   Start an industry initiative, to not appoint the waiter/kitchen person running off (often without notice) from one restaurant to another.

6.  Train your staff - start with the wines.  When the waiter does not understand the word “vintage”, I shudder, and wonder why you did not start at the beginning with your training, or why your winelist cannot list this important detail.

7.  Why do we as patrons have to pay the salaries of your staff via tips?  It is the only industry where the onus lies on the client to make such a payment.  Almost two years ago the Department of Labour promulgated the Sectoral Determination for the Hospitality Industry, and it demands that staff be appointed on a full-time basis, with a monthly salary.  I know of few restaurants where this legal requirement is being applied. 

8.  Charge fair prices.  It’s tough for everyone at the moment.  Price increases of up to 50% (Reubens) and exorbitant World Cup prices (Beluga and Sevruga) alienate customers and make you look greedy.  The days of hoping that tourists alone will fill your coffers because of their foreign currency are over. 

9.   The marketing of restaurants is very poor.  Blond sexy “poppies” in ads does not crack it for most of us!  Few restaurants have websites, and the fewest restaurants seem to understand search engine optimisation, in making sure that patrons can find more information about their restaurants on the internet.   If one does a Google search, restaurant websites often are ranked lower than reviews written about them by industry websites such as Eat Out, or by bloggers.   This means that prospective clients are not hearing the restaurant marketing message directly.   The fewest restaurants in Cape Town understand the power of Social Media (Pizza Club, Cafe Max, Nook Eatery, Arnold on Kloof and Jardine are the few on Twitter) and Goffe-Wood Twitters and blogs very occasionally only.  I am not aware of any restaurant which has an integrated social media marketing strategy! 

10.   Your customers have become your reviewers, horror of horrors, and they say it as it is.  No more white-washing, no more ‘incestuous’ relationships between reviewers wishing to remain best mates with the chefs.  Bloggers are evaluating restaurants as the man/woman in the street would experience them, and the more honest they are in writing about what they experience, the more their evaluations are valued.   Banning them from your restaurants, as Le Quartier Francais, Carne and Beluga have done, if they have given you a critical review, is not productive, and it means that the restaurants will not improve if they cannot accept feedback.

11.  Treat us with honesty - do not con us with a marketing claim on your website, that is not true - as does Carne, which claims that all its meat is organic and comes from the Karoo, which has proven to be not true.  The dishonest claim remains on the website!

Restaurant patrons will forgive a restaurant many sins if they feel comfortable and “at home”; if they feel respected, even if the feedback provided is not always positive, provided in the interest of making it better;  if they are kept up to date with information from the restaurant; and if restaurants learn to say thank you for regular patronage, for a review, or for business sent to them by a regular client.  Not too much to ask, is it?!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The Whale Cottage Portfolio has increased the traffic to its website six-fold in one year, since embodying social media marketing, and has exceeded the 30 000 visitorship for the first time this month.  In 2009 a total of just fewer than 200000 unique visitors was recorded.

In January 2009 4850 unique visitors (i.e. unduplicated visitorship) had accessed the website, four months after Whale Cottage had started this blog www.whalecottage.com/blog.   At the end of December this had grown to 27 928 unique visitors.

The major impact on the growth in web traffic has been persistent blogging, with the target of one blog post published per day having been met with one or two exceptions.   Performance improved once the blog posts were posted during mid-morning, instead of just after midnight, when they had just been written.   This post is the 500th written on this WhaleTales blog.

Twitter has made a significant contribution too, with it serving as an “announcement” of what one has blogged about, providing a link to the website which can be accessed for more information, given its 140 character space restriction.   Whale Cottage has close to 700 followers, and has written more than 2 000 tweets to date.   Facebook has played only a small role in contributing to web traffic.

Cross-referencing has also assisted in the growth in Whale Cottage’s visibility, in that the social media links are part of the Whale Cottage e-mail signature; in that the WhaleTales newsletter invites its readers to follow Whale Cottage on Twitter and Facebook; and the blog has an RSS feed link, to enable regular readers to receive the latest WhaleTales blog post, and it has links to the Whale Cottage Twitter and Facebook pages.

New traffic to the website has come from restaurant reviews in particular, especially for new restaurants.  Few restaurants have websites, and do not understand about search engine optimisation.  Some Whale Cottage restaurant reviews have outperformed the restaurant websites in terms of the Google ranking on page one of a search on a specific restaurant.   Where other websites provided a link to the Whale Cottage blog in cases of restaurant controversy (e.g. Portofino, Carne), traffic to the website has been enhanced.

In 2009 the top 10 blog posts that were read most often were the following:

1.   Spar Sweet and Limelight Sour Service Awards (8 838)

2.   Petrol price drop best Christmas present for tourists (5119)

3.   Franschhoek goes Italian (Allora review) (4394)

4.   Rebel restaurateur a hit at Portofino (3 360)

5.   SA presence on top 50 restaurant list grows (2 468)

6.   Prince Albert celebrates in Fresnaye (2 276)

7.   Whales beach on Kommetjie beach (1 984)

8.   Minstrels do it for Cape Town (1 698)

9.   Table Mountain only SA New7wonders nominee (1 570)

10.  Sun Princess to visit Cape Town (1 510)

The most popular restaurants in Cape Town at the moment, based on restaurant reviews accessed on the Whale Cottage Portfolio website via Google this month, are Duchess of Wisbeach, Vaudeville and Kuzina.   

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

While we all love to eat out, it is disappointing when one gets taken for a ride by restaurants making false claims, or if they are dishonest in the presentation of their product and service.

My favourite hobby horse is wines-by-the-glass.  I have discovered regularly that the chosen vintage for such wines is seldom that which is advertised on the winelist.   Few winelists have a disclaimer, covering them for a vintage running out.   I always ask for the wine to be poured at the table - I also want to taste it before a glassful is poured.  Few restaurants do this.  Last week, at Wijnhuis in Newlands, a restaurant that places wines prominently in the foreground, I ordered a glass of Delheim Shiraz 2004, as per the winelist.   The waiter brought the poured glass to the table.  When I asked him to pour it at the table he came with a 2006 bottle.  When questioned about the vintage difference, he shrugged his shoulders.  The vintages had run out, he said, as if to say – so what?!    The older the wine, the more expensive it is.  So therefore, by deduction, a restaurant should charge less if the vintage is younger than advertised. 

At Vaudeville earlier this month four glasses of wine were poured out of a bottle, and the bottle was not left on the table.  When we asked for the rest of the wine, we were told that it was finished.  Any restaurateur will tell you that you can pour up to 6 glasses of wine out of a 750 ml bottle.   The GM begrudgingly brought 2 further glasses of wine to the table.   Surprisingly they do not tell you that the bottle is finished, nor sell you another!  

Newport Deli in Mouille Point wipes the mayonnaise off the tuna and chicken from the previous day’s sandwiches, puts them onto fresh bread, adds new mayonnaise, and calls the sandwiches “fresh”!

According to an ex-waiter of Bayside Cafe in Camps Bay, the left-over vegetables (usually butternut and spinach) returned from the table are put back into containers, and re-used for the next patrons!

A more devious dishonesty is when a restaurant makes a claim on its menu and website that it serves only organic beef, lamb and game from the owner’s farm in the Karoo, and an insider whistleblower tells friends that the restaurant in fact uses meat delivered from the same meat suppliers used by other restaurants in Cape Town.   The restaurant in question is Carne, well-known as a specialist meat/steak restaurant, which states on its website:  “Dedicated entirely to meat as is evident from its Italian name, Carne SA is a carnivore’s paradise serving a unique offering of the finest cuts of Romagnola beef, Dorper lamb and game, all organically grown on Giorgio’s own Karoo farms.   To test this allegation before confronting Carne, the December statement and an invoice from one of Carne’s largest meat suppliers – Gastro Foods – which supplied about R60 000 worth of meat, including Romagnola “beef T-bone”, “beef prime rib Carne” and “Beef Rump Swiss”, to Carne in December, were checked.  Botes Meat Centre also supplied Carne with meat to the value of about R15 000 in the same month.   We then wrote to Carne owner Giorgio Nava, asking him to comment on the allegation that not all his meat, as claimed on his website and his menu, comes from his farm and that not all of it is organic.   This was his reply:   “The traditional meat suppliers in cape town supply us from time to time with offal ( because we need fresh daily, impossible from the Karoo ) and two traditional suppliers store my carcase when ,my two cold rooms are full. One traditional supplier cuts my meat from time to time when I cannot handle the amount of work. We buy samples of meat from many suppliers to compare regularly with our grass fed meat. Hope my answer satisfies you.  Regards,  Giorgio Nava”!   With a purchase of R 30 000 – R 60 000 per month of beef from Gastro Foods, and about R 15 000 - R 20 000 from Botes Meat Centre, it appears likely that most of the beef served at Carne is NOT from the Karoo, NOR is all of it organic!!!   This is outright dishonesty, unacceptable for any restaurant, and especially for one on the Eat Out Top 20 list.

POSTSCRIPT (30 January)

Since this post was published, Giorgio Nava has called, and explained that he rears beef on his farm in the Karoo, and sells the carcasses to meat suppliers such as Gastro Foods at market-related prices.  They cut these up, and he buys the beef cuts that he serves at Carne back from them, at market-related prices.   This was his written reply:  “Chris I think you’ve got the wrong information. The two butchers you mentioned in your article buy my whole carcases they mature for me they cut for me as I stated before and they sell back to me the cut I need for my menu  as I cannot utilise the whole carcase in my restaurant.”  

This was confirmed by Andreas Reichmuth, the GM of Gastro Foods, who called proactively to support Carne.   HOWEVER, Mr Reichmuth spontaneously volunteered, without being asked, that he delivers ostrich and game to Carne too, which does not come from Mr Nava’s Karoo farm.   Gastro Foods does not supply lamb.

Despite legal pressure from Mr Nava and his lawyer, we stand by our story that not all meat prepared at Carne is from Mr Nava’s Karoo farm, and may not all be organic,on the following grounds:

1.  Mr Nava has confirmed that he does buy in “meat from many suppliers to compare regularly with our grass fed meat”.

2.  Gastro Foods’ GM confirmed on 29 January that his company supplies to Carne game that is not from Mr Nava’s farm

3.  Rossouw’s Restaurants wrote on 10 January 2009 that “….plus some of the meat comes from Nava’s own farm”, implying that not all of it does come from the Karoo farm.

We have requested Mr Nava to provide us with details of the lamb that he uses, and whether it is supplied by a meat supplier, and whether this is done on the same basis as the arrangement he has with Gastro Foods for the beef supply.   We have also asked for organic certification of his meats.  Both requests were denied, and the writer has been referred to Mr Nava’s lawyer.

We are surprised that Mr Nava did not explain the sale of his beef carcasses and buy-back relationship when he was approached for comment prior to the publishing of the post.  He offered no information about his lamb and game supply.   We asked Mr Nava: “I have been told that your website may be misleading in claiming that all the meats that you use are organically produced on your Karoo farms, and that they might in fact be delivered by traditional meat suppliers in Cape Town”.

POSTCRIPT (2 February) 

Mr Nava’s lawyer has written to confirm that Carne has a similar sell/buy-back relationship with Botes Meat Centre as far as his lamb and game is concerned.  He did not address the request for the organic certification.   He also wrote that “Mr Nava considers this matter to be at an end”. 

The controversial claim on the Carne website has not yet been amended.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com 

The Prudential Eat Out Top 10 restaurant list can make, or break, restaurants, and so the tension in the ballroom of the Westin Grand Hotel in Cape Town was high when the top restaurant awards were announced last night.

Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly indicated that the choice for this year’s Top 10 was very tough, and clarified that a chef owning more than one restaurant (e.g. Reuben Riffel) could be eligible for an award, as could a chef who will spend more time away from his namesake restaurant (George Jardine), at his new Country Restaurant at Jordan winery in Stellenbosch.   In recent years a Top 20 list is announced a few months prior to the November highlight, and this year the new players on this list were The Round House in Camps Bay (who bravely stated at their inception that they want to be the best restaurant in Africa, and who are very Big Brother as far as observing their patrons is concerned), the Green House in the Cellars Hohenhort hotel, and Carne.

The scoring for the restaurants was 70 % for the food, 20 % for the service and 10 % for the ambiance.   Restaurants had to have operated for a minimum of a year to be considered, the owner and the chef had to show a passion for their business, they had to show a dedication to uplift the industry, they had to show that quality sourcing of their supplies is important, and consistency and excellence had to be their foundation.

The winners of the 2010 Prudential Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant Awards are as follows, in order of rank:

1.   La Colombe in Constantia
2.   Restaurant Mosaic in Pretoria
3.   Rust en Vrede Restaurant in Stellenbosch
4.   Terroir in Stellenbosch
5.   The Roundhouse in Camps Bay
6.   The Restaurant at Grande Provence in Franschhoek
7.   The Green House at the Cellars in Constantia
8.   Roots in Johannesburg
9.   9th Avenue Bistro in Durban
10. Overture in Stellenbosch and the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek.

The tension, excitement and shock was felt by all when the winners were announced. The first surprise of the evening was that Abigail Donnelly, the editor of Eat Out magazine, had created two new Award categories, in which only she had a say in the winners. The Best Country Kitchen Award went to a perennial favourite - Marianna’s in Stanford - while, very surprisingly, the other new category was Best Bistro, which was won by Bizerca Bistro in Cape Town, a top 20 Award finalist. This made it clear that Bizerca would not make the Top 10 Eat Out Awards list for 2010. Many heads were shaking, and it sounded as if Bizerca had won a consolation prize.

The next shock was that the 10th place winner was a jointly placed Overture and the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais, once again sounding as if the judges could not decide which of the two restaurants to drop into 11th position, making both these restaurants joint 10th winners, and thus creating an Eat Out Top 11 Restaurants Awards this year! The list also created a stir in that Jardine fell out of the top list completely (from number 2 last year), as did Hartford House.  La Colombe, 9th Avenue Bistro, Mosaic, Terroir, The Tasting Room, Roots and Overture were all on the Top 10 restaurant list last year.   Restaurants that were on the Top 20 list, but which did not make the Top 10 list, are Reubens, Carne, Aubergine, Bread and Wine, The Food Barn, Hartford House, Zachary’s, Bizerca Bistro and Jardine.

Chantel Dartnall of Mosaic won the Chef of the Year award.   Rust en Vrede won the Service Excellence award.

Cape Town and the Winelands retain their reputation as the gourmet centre of South Africa, three awards going to Cape Town and Stellenbosch restaurants each, and two to Franschhoek restaurants.  

The 5-star Westin Grand Hotel disappointed hugely as the venue hosting an awards evening recognising the best of gourmet cooking and service in South Africa.   Its standards have dropped significantly compared to the slick function a year ago.   Luke warm waters and white wines were served, the service staff were initially unable to cope, and the airconditioning did not operate at an acceptable level.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio : www.whalecottage.com

The Cape Town restaurant scene has been buzzing this month, with a number of new restaurants opening, and an e-mail exchange creating the biggest restaurant stir ever experienced in the city.

The opening of the Cape Quarter extension on Somerset Road in De Waterkant has seen two restaurants open in the centre to date: Cru Cafe, a restaurant which has created “its own terroir” in the centre, says director Elsie Pells, in serving a selection of 150 wines hand-picked by Pells, a Cape Wine Master.   Voila, an all day breakfast and light meal restaurant, owned by the owners of Wakame, is a friendly addition, with cakes, muffins, croissants, fudge, toffee apples and many more treats prepared on site.   A clever touch is that glass domes presenting the treats are placed upon stacks of cookery books!  Downstairs, at the entrance, is an Andiamo Espresso, which is a sister coffee shop to the one in the original Cape Quarter, but on a very much reduced scale, only selling coffee, ice creams, juices, sandwiches and muffins.  It belongs to the same owners as the amazing Spar Gourmet Food Store at the entrance to the center.   Vanilla will open at the end of the month, and is owned by father and son duo Nigel and Simon Newhouse from Tuscany Beach in Camps Bay.   It will be the lead restaurant in this centre, with 180 diners catered for on two levels.   The chef  Evan Coosner worked at Reuben’s  and Ginja previously.   Kuzina - Greekooking, LAZARI, and BICCCS (Bread, Ice Cream, Cakes, Coffee, Croissants, Sandwiches) are restaurants still set to open in the centre.    To celebrate its opening, the Cape Quarter has organised a Food & Brandy Festival on 13 and 14 November, with Giggling Gourmet Jenny Morris, in conjunction with the Alchemy of Gold (Klipdrift, Flight of the Fish Eagle, Oude Meester, Nederburg, Uitkyk and Van Ryn’s brandies), talking and preparing food all day long.

The talk and tweet of the town has been an e-mail exchange between Cormac Keane, owner of new restaurant Portofino, and a client, who cancelled a 5 pm dinner reservation one hour before time of arrival.  Keane expressed his frustration to the client in no uncertain terms and with true Irish directness.  The client was not happy with the replies he received from Portofino, and made contact with some websites that had written favourable reviews of the restaurant, including WhaleTales.    He also sent it to a hip website called 2oceansvibe, which decided to post the e-mail exchange on its blog, leading to an outburst of mainly critical and at times extremely crass and defamatory attacks against Keane.  On the other hand, many readers of the exchange admired Keane for standing up to an inconsiderate customer, and lauded him for his bold and direct stand. The end result:  the customer has gone into hiding, and has requested that his name be deleted from the exchange on the 2oceansvibe website.  For Portofino, it has meant a fully booked restaurant ever since the e-mail exchange was circulated around the city, reinforcing that there is no such thing as bad publicity!   The WhaleTales’ review of Portofino, which was written shortly after Portofino opened, was offered as a link in some of the website comments, and the review attracted more than 2000 readers in the past week, a record readership.   A vindictive customer tried to show up what he felt was a rude restaurateur, and got more than he bargained for.  Instead of spreading the word to prevent others from going to Portofino, he has done the restaurant the best possible favour by creating wide-spread exposure for it, a bonus for a restaurant which only opened 6 weeks ago, and now has become the best known restaurant in town!   Portofino is not the first restaurant to have told a customer to not return: Le Quartier Francais, Carne, Beluga and Sevruga are known to have done so too!    Carne and Le Quartier Francais are finalists for the Prudential Eat Out Top 10 restaurant awards, and it begs the question whether such poor restaurant customer care should make them eligible for such a sought-after award.  

Another restaurant that is on the Eat Out Top 10 restaurant shortlist is The Roundhouse in Camps Bay, which has demonstrated its arrogance almost since its inception, stating at the outset that its goal is to become the best restaurant in Africa.  A response of the owner Fasie Malherbe to a customer comment on the Eat Out website is a scary reflection of what one might encounter at this ‘Big Brother’ restaurant: “every guest that has ever walked through our door and dined with us is on record to the extent that I will outline your exact time of arrival, what you ate, what you drank as aperitif’s, digestif’s wine that was served to you, the guests comments made on each dish, positive or negative feedback, special dietry (sic) requirements, the guest interaction between staff is noted, what car you drove, whether you smoked or not, how many times you went to the restroom and any other details that we could use to ensure that when you return that we may ensure consistency in offering or if you have complaints as we have here that we have all our ducks in a row and can learn from the ordeal”!

Bruce Robertson, the previous owner of The Showroom, which is where Portofino is now located, has confirmed that the Franschhoek restaurant that he is consulting on is that of La Motte, which is due to open in May.   The wine estate has just opened its new tasting room.   Robertson is also working with Warwick wine estate outside Stellenbosch on their gourmet picnic offering, which will be available from 1 December.  Robertson is also a gourmet food tour guide now, and he led the editor and 8 readers of USA foodie magazine Bon Appetit around the culinary delights of the Cape, including Reuben preparing a meal at Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek; a winepairing dinner at Grand Roche with Cederberg Wines; a malas tasting at Paul Cluver matched to organic farm foods; a seafood braai paired with Hamilton-Russell wines at Birkenhead in Hermanus, with the Southern Right whales frolicking in the ocean as a backdrop; and an interactive Cape Malay cooking demonstration with Cass Abrahams and paired with L’Omarins wines. 

OYO, the restaurant in the V&A Hotel in the Waterfront, is offering a crayfish special at R 185 for 500 grams.  A choice of hot or cold crayfish is offered.  Sister restaurant SALT at the Ambassador Hotel in Bantry Bay is also offering this special.

Alle’e Bleue wine estate has opened its beautiful top class winetasting room, and has a new outside courtyard restaurant seating about 80 linked to it, serving only five options:   Flammkuchen, Bobotie, a cheese platter, a chicken/spinach salad and a mixed grill.

Delaire Graff has made three changes after only being open for four months:  its prices have increased, its staff have changed, losing their exceptional Maitre’d, and their menu has changed.   Read a report on the latest visit here.

New Italian restaurant Alla Posta is to open at 51 Kloof Street shortly.  It will not only offer Italian delicacies, but also Italian furniture, decor and books, and show Italian movies.

Two new restaurants are set to open in Franschhoek soon, both owned by one of Franschhoek’s largest retail and hospitality landowners Robert Maingard.   In the old station building once hosting the Tourism Bureau, a sports bar is set to open, while a creperie should have opened a few months ago already close to the Huguenot Fine Chocolate shop.   A Franschhoek branch of Gelato Mania, which already exists on Somerset Road, in Green Point, opened recently and is tucked away alongside Col’Cacchio.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio www.whalecottage.com

Sixteen of the 20 finalists on the Prudential Eat Out Restaurant Awards list, from which the Top 10 list will be selected at the Awards function on 22 November, are from Cape Town and the Western Cape, proving that the Cape is the Gourmet Centre of the country. 

Eight finalists are from Cape Town alone, four are from Franschhoek and three are from Stellenbosch.

The three Stellenbosch finalists all made the Top 10 list last year - Terroir, Overture and Rust & Vrede.  Franschhoek’s finalists are Reubens (Top Chef and Top Restaurant winner five years ago), The Restaurant at Grande Provence, Bread & Wine, and The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais (the only current Top 10 restaurant in Franschhoek).   All the Franschhoek finalists have been previous Top 10 winners.

New entrants to the Top 20 list, having been open for more than a year, are Carne, The Greenhouse at The Cellars Hohenhort, and The Roundhouse, all based in Cape Town.   All other finalists were finalists last year as well.

Finalists of last year that did not make the Top 20 list this year are The Showroom (closed down earlier this year and now houses Portofino), Myoga, The Saxon (chef Rudi Liebenberg has moved to The Mount Nelson Hotel) and Linger Longer.

The full list of Top 20 finalists is as follows:

1. 9th Avenue Bistro, Durban
2. Aubergine, Cape Town
3. Bizerca Bistro, Cape Town
4. Bread and Wine, Franschhoek
5. Carne SA, Cape Town
6. The Foodbarn, Cape Town
7. The Greenhouse at The Cellars-Hohenort, Cape Town
8. Hartford House, Mooi River, KZN
9. Jardine, Cape Town
10. La Colombe, Cape Town
11. Mosaic Restaurant, Pretoria
12. Overture, Stellenbosch
13. The Restaurant at Grande Provence, Franschhoek
14. Reuben’s Restaurant & Bar, Franschhoek
15. Roots, Johannesburg
16. The Roundhouse, Cape Town
17. Rust en Vrede, Stellenbosch
18. Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français, Franschhoek
19. Terroir, Stellenbosch
20. Zachary’s, Knysna

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio www.whalecottage.com

The Sweet Service Award goes to Gavin Lockitch and his team at Summerville in Camps Bay, for hosting the members of  Camps Bay Accommodation, the guest house association of the suburb, for a meeting and lunch at the restaurant.   Summerville has been taken over after its liquidation, and Lockitch has the most incredible positive energy and passion, to make this a successful restaurant again.   He is planning to expand its size to cater for 400 patrons, and to rename the restaurant.   He welcomes feedback and suggestions.

The Sour Service Award goes to Carne, the new sister restaurant to 95 on Keerom Street, directly opposite the previous Top Ten restaurant in Keerom Street.   A patron asked for some soup on a cold wintry night, and the waiter offered to check with his manager if he could bring a plate of minestrone across from 95 on Keerom Street, as Carne does not serve soup.   His request was refused.  Another customer, who had a mini chopped-up Caprese salad at an expensive R65 and a main course of lamb shoulder (three little pieces at R109) served with almost-cold mash, requested tiramisu for dessert, which was not on the Carne menu, but on that of 95 on Keerom.   The manager Jamie flatly refused for the dessert to be brought in from 95 on Keerom, and confirmed that he was operating on the instructions of the owner Giorgio Nava.   The customer then offered to have the dessert and her coffee across the road at 95 on Keerom, and asked the manager to reserve a table for her.   This request was also refused, as one is not allowed to just have a dessert and coffee at 95 on Keerom.   The customer then requested that Mr Nava come to the table, but he did not budge on his decision, confirming that the customer would not be served just a coffee and tiramasu at 95 on Keerom, even at 21h30, as it would set a precedent for all future customers.   The customer told him that he was being inflexible, and he responded with true Italian “charm” as follows:”I hope to not see you in my restaurant again.  Arrividerci”!   Nonna Lina, just a block away on Orange Street, was most happy to indulge the customer in just having a coffee and tiramisu.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.