Is the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais really worse than a parking lot bistro?

The chefs' parade during the Eat Out Awards ceremony at the Westin Grand on Cape Town's Foreshore. From left, Richard Carstens, Michael Broughton, Luke Dale-Roberts, Laurent Deslandes, and the Westin Grand's Grant Cullingworth. The photograph was given an antique effect in iPhotos.

AWARDS CEREMONIES are to the restaurant industry what fashion shows are to wearable fashion. You wouldn’t want to wear much of what a model wears while sashaying down the catwalk with pouty lips and sultry eyes. (Although sometimes I think that what’s going on behind the eyes is, “Left leg, right leg, left leg …”) Not that I’m suggesting that chefs (or models) are bimbos, or even that the courses they bring out for the annual Eat Out awards ceremony are anything you wouldn’t want to eat.

But let’s be honest: cooking for an awards function at this level does push the boundaries a bit. They know their peers are all going to be watching their every morsel, and they’re also, all four of them, looking over their shoulders to see what the other three are up to.

On Sunday night, for the 2009 awards – and the launch of the 2010 Eat Out magazine annual – the four chefs chosen to cook the gala dinner were Laurent Deslandes of Bizerca on the Cape Town Foreshore, Luke Dale-Roberts of La Colombe in Constantia, Michael Broughton of Terroir near Stellenbosch, and Richard Carstens, who is currently posted to Reuben Riffel’s Franschhoek and Robertson restaurants.

All four, note, are from the Cape’s ever-splendid crop of chefs. With few exceptions, it seems there’s not much happening in the Johannesburg and Durban restaurant industries. But more on that (and the extraordinary inclusion of a Durban parking lot eatery in the country’s top 10) later.

These are four chefs I respect, and the awards dinner in the ballroom of the Westin Grand hotel on the Cape Town Foreshore offers a fascinating chance to see chefs of this calibre in competition, however tacit.

Laurent Deslandes' raw Norwegian salmon salad with goat's cheese and a shallot, ginger and soy dressing.

Laurent was first up with a starter of a raw Norwegian salmon salad served with creamy goat’s cheese and a shallot, ginger and soy dressing. Fresh and light and lovely. No surprises that Dale-Roberts’ first main course was topnotch, although to me it looked more like a second starter. This was served on one of a range of four beautiful plates specially designed for La Colombe by Andile Dyalvane of Imiso Ceramics in collaboration with Dr Adriaan Landman of the College of Cape Town and his students. 

On the gorgeous rectangular plate, based on a strip of bark with red splashes of what you presume to be sap, was a neatly pressed terrine of foie gras and smoked quail with cured duck breast and caramelised Jerusalem artichokes, almond and cardamom puree and an espresso reduction.

Luke Dale-Roberts' pressed terrine of foie gras with smoked quail, cured duck breast, caramelised Jerusalem artichokes, almond and cardamom puree and espresso reduction.

This, as you’ll find if you visit La Colombe, is typical of Luke’s complex culinary concoctions. Absolutely yummy – he does not win these awards for nothing.

The second main was Broughton’s rolled loin and braised neck of Karoo lamb with pea and marjoram ravioli. This was a good meal, perfectly cooked and presented, but you will find dishes of a similar standard in any number of Cape restaurants. It did not push the boundaries for me. Carstens always pushes the limits. He’s had some tough times recently, losing his short-lived Nova restaurant in the City Bowl after only a few months. I found a certain edge to him on Sunday night, as if he was asserting himself, saying, hey, I deserve to be here.

Had he been invited to cook because his Nova would have been nominated had it not closed? I don’t know. But that would explain his presence in a line-up of chefs who, otherwise, were nominees on the night. Either way, let’s salute a great chef.

Richard Carstens' exploration of a rose - rose yoghurt sorbet, marshmallow, creme, gel, with pistachio crumbs.

For his dessert he offered an affair as clinically white as the decor of the deceased Nova (which, poignantly, had been marketed as ‘the brightening of a star’). His star was certainly bright on Sunday. His rose yoghurt sorbet was a dream. The best sorbet ever. You wanted to adopt it and keep it in your freezer to multiply forever. Rose creme, gel (a cubed sliver of jelly), litchi and pistachio crumbs. This was not for the hungry but most pleasing to eye and palate.

And then, to the awards. Restaurant of the year was La Colombe, in Constantia. No arguments there. The runner-up was Restaurant Mosaic in Pretoria, of which I cannot pass comment, not having been to that capital for some … well, decades. But the chef of the year was Mosaic’s Chantel Dartnall, not Dale-Roberts, who won both categories last year. Can’t say I follow how that is justified, but hey, they’re just awards. Love to try her food.

In third place was Rust en Vrede, Stellenbosch, whose debonair chef David Higgs also collected the gong for best service, an award which has gone to Terroir several times. But Terroir was up next, followed by The Roundhouse, Camps Bay, The Restaurant at Grande Provence, Franschhoek, The Greenhouse at the Cellars, Constantia, and Roots in Johannesburg.

But would somebody please explain to me why Durban’s 9th Avenue Bistro is deemed worthy of a place in the country’s top 10? I just don’t get it. And yes, I have eaten there, only three months ago. I’m not knocking the place. I had a lovely lunch there, beautifully sauced, tender, well presented, no problems at all with the food.

But I have had similarly good food at any number of Cape Town restaurants with better decor and, well, better settings. Perhaps it’s just because the judges are too embarrassed to give most of the awards to Cape restaurants. Hey, we’ve become a world food capital. We’ve worked hard for it. The truth is the truth, and shouldn’t be manipulated so as not to offend readers from other provinces. Better to give all the gongs to the best ones, even if they are all from the Cape, and see that as a challenge to Durban restaurants to up their game. Evidently they need to.

Like Bizerca, a bland little place with great food which gobsmacked many by being included in last year’s top 10, 9th Avenue Bistro just isn’t up to this level of competition, only because a great restaurant is not measured only by its food.

Quality of food is paramount, but it is not everything. Interestingly, this year the organisers decided to introduce a new award for best bistro, because, as Eat Out’s Abigail Donnelly explained, it was felt there should be an award for a restaurant which might not have great decor but which nevertheless served great food. So this year that went to Bizerca. I commend this decision. But that’s where 9th Avenue should have been in contention. That would be a deserved and appropriate win.

Finally, sharing 10th position were two of the very best restaurants in the Western Cape, both of which I feel should have been higher up in the commendations. I mean, how on earth is 9th Avenue Bistro, which has a nondescript al fresco area overlooking a plain-as-chips parking lot, better than the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais and Margot Janse’s fabulous cuisine, or master chef Bertus Basson’s Overture with its world-beating view? I don’t buy it.

Utterly, incredulously, ridiculous. I cannot be persuaded otherwise. And hey, if you’re from Durban and reading this, let us know which Durban restaurants you feel are worthy of this level of recognition. I reckon they must be there, but if 9th Avenue is the best you can do, I wouldn’t bother.

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Michael Broughton's rolled loin and braised neck of Karoo lamb with pea and marjoram ravioli.