Home

Two Western Cape restaurants make world’s top 100 list

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Two South African restaurants, both from the Western Cape, have made it to the top 100 list of best restaurants in the world for this year.

La Colombe in Constantia in the Mother City has been placed at 56th, while Wolfgat in Paternoster on the Cape West Coast has listed in the 90th position.

The ranking is done by the prestigious The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022. The first course at globally renowned La Colombe is already on the table when guests arrive.

The citrus liquid palate cleanser is served in two small doves egg, the theme taken from the restaurant’s name which means The Dove in French.

Back in the kitchen, executive chef, James Gaag and his team are busy creating what they call food theatre, each dish, a gastronomical showpiece.

This acorn and mushroom contains a truffled chicken liver parfait, dipped in a gel made with preserved cherries and forest berry tea.

La Colombe Executive Chef James Gaag says, “So it has a really nice citrusy sort of berry flavour with a truffled chicken liver parfait inside a truffle custard underneath. The truffles are locally  grown and then the little tart case is made of buckwheat so gluten-friendly, all the things you have to abide by nowadays.”

“Then you take the acorn lid off, in the lid of the acron you have a snoek pate. So at the moment, there’s a lovely snoek run happening in the Western Cape so we get our snoek smoked and flake it down and make it into a pate. The jelly on top of it, I call it a Cape Malay jelly but it’s essentially, imagine pickled fish. So it’s a jelly that covers the top of the snoek. So you’re having  snoek pate with pickled fish flavours.”

Gaag says making it to the top 100 list is a milestone not just for his career, but also a huge feather in the cap of the entire team.

He says presenting the mouthwatering dishes in a creative, and unique way is part of the goal to make sure guests leave with a lasting memory of an exquisite dining experience.

“You will see that the menu sort of reflects that, where it was very strict sort of french, Asian fusion, now you have a Thai inspired dish and a Mexican inspired dish, and you know, a very french dish or whatever it is, I think the menu is globally inspired, I like to travel and see different cultures and different way of cooking so I’m always on the hunt for something different, and I don’t think it should be bound to a certain style,” Gaag explains.

Wolfgat restaurant

Ranking at number 90 is the award-winning Wolfgat restaurant in the small fishing town of Paternoster. Established in a 130-year-old fishers cottage, the restaurant offers diners an intimate West Coast dining experience situated in a historic cave.

Named the world’s best restaurant by the inaugural World Restaurant Awards in February 2019 in Paris, guests here will delight in Chef Kobus van der Merwe’s signature Strandveld food menu made using sustainably sourced seafood, local meat, and indigenous veldkos and herbs.

Provincial authorities have lauded both award-winning restaurants for positioning the Western Cape and South Africa firmly on the world’s gastronomy stage.

Western Cape Finance and Economic Opportunities Mirielle Wenger says, “It really puts our province on the culinary map and it means more domestic tourism to our province but it also means international visitors will come in their numbers to our province. Already post-COVID-19 we see very nice tourism recovery to the Western Cape.”

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants for this year is expected to be announced in London on the 18 of July.

 

Author

MOST READ