Cape Town is abuzz with rumours that its enterprising restaurateurs have embarked on a quest to produce the ultimate dining experience. Soon, patrons will be required to arrive at top city restaurants bearing their own packed meals. And if they are lucky enough to be allocated one of the 10 seating times they will be treated to the quintessential restaurant experience.
After you have found your table, seated yourself and unpacked your cutlery, chef will waft past, sneer and force you to eat his signature dish of Arrogant Disdain with a sauce of Outlandish Price. You will only see your waiter when he feels he’s psychologically ready to face your unnatural demands for water and bread.
At some point, he will treat you to a five-minute lecture on the etymology of the word ‘wait”, and require you to order the most expensive bottle of wine available, because chef insists ‘it’s the only wine that adequately complements Fleecing the Sucker”.
Being the investigative journalist I am and feeling a mite peckish, I decided to visit a few restaurants to test the validity of these rumours. My first stop was Kyoto Garden Sushi on Kloof Nek Road — a restaurant where the owner has cleverly avoided the whole issue of good versus bad service by deciding to deny patrons any service whatsoever.
When we arrive dead on time for our reservation, he tells us that we have to wait outside because a magazine is inside doing a photo shoot. Fine. We wait in the piquant aroma of bergie piss and petrol fumes characteristic of that part of Gardens.
Eventually, he comes outside to accusingly inform us that his staff should never have taken our reservation. If he’d known, he’d have said no. I ask him which magazine is shooting. ‘It’s a European magazine,” he tells us triumphantly. ‘Which one?”, asks one of my companions politely.” ‘A EUROPEAN magazine”, he repeats crossly. Clearly, he feels the name would mean nothing to a poor South African.
Well, that’s going to get you a lot of local custom, I mutter. This enrages him. ‘I’m from LA, and let me tell you, you Capetonians are so uptight!” I’m momentarily sidetracked by the shock of meeting someone who thinks people from Cape Town, the city where sloths holiday when they need a break from their stressful sleeping, are too demanding. The restaurant owner uses the opportunity to make his escape.
Okay. I put my foot up on one of the bamboo planters flanking his front door and prepare to wait. The restaurant owner rushes out to berate me. ‘I paid R1 500 for that pot, if you don’t mind.” I take my foot off and apologise. ‘And also, for future reference, I’m afraid we have a dress code in this restaurant.” He tosses his dyed locks, and flounces back inside.
I’m dumbfounded. I almost feel the urge to apologise for bothering him with my pesky desire to eat in his restaurant. I also feel a slight twinge of compassion for him. My two companions work for two of the biggest publishing houses in Cape Town, and I work for the biggest media company in the country. Kyoto Gardenboy has just achieved something of a PR coup in managing to reach about 50% of South African media in one night.
I almost feel like taking the man aside and explaining to him that in Cape Town, unlike Los Angeles, you really can’t judge a diner by your couvert. We’re a casual people and if some of us choose to arrive at restaurants wearing Levi’s, a T-shirt, and a body that hasn’t been surgically altered, you really shouldn’t assume we’re scum. Instead, we opt to forego the pleasure of waiting in the street, and leave.
I can’t help contrasting this experience with one of a few nights before, when I dined at the excellent Bowl in Adderley Street. The service is so good at Bowl, they even offer a delivery service to neighbouring apartments, where your food arrives plated and carefully carried by a courteous, smartly dressed waiter, who returns at your convenience to reclaim the crockery.
On the night I ate there, the English chef came out to our table to recommend his delicious lemon and coconut steamed mussels, and told us that he’d be taking the heavier items off his menu now that he had experienced the heat of local conditions. When we asked him if it was true that he’d trained under Gordon Ramsay, he said: ‘Yes. But they don’t tell you how long I lasted.”
Dry humour, top-notch service, damn fine food and the ability to fit into local conditions rather than arrogantly impose your imported sensibilities on the poor natives — Bowl will flourish in Cape Town. I’m not sure how long I’d give Kyoto Garden Sushi, though.
You can find Bowl at Adderley Hotel, Adderley Street. Tel: (021) 469 1900.
Kyoto Garden Sushi is on Kloof Nek Rd.
Chris Roper is editor of 24.com