After a disappointing 15 months, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has closed Maze.
Schadenfreude is rife in Cape Town foodie circles right now, but then Ramsay, who often behaves like a belligerent guest on the Jerry Springer Show, provokes such reactions.
Ramsay Holdings blames the poor performance on the One & Only Hotel; locals put the failure squarely on the service and food at Maze. I was not alone in having a nearperfect experience in the first week Maze opened. However, just days later, it was a disaster, to such an extent that it gave our table a raft of desserts free of charge as an apology. I never returned.
It illustrates that despite a supervising Michelin chef and a super-star television name to draw the crowds, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. To survive one needs to understand and persuade the local market.
Gourmet restaurant La Colombe seems to be getting it right. Local ambition is far more likely to succeed than international swagger.
While he was still executive chef, Luke Dale-Roberts took La Colombe to global acclaim, gaining 12th place in the San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants of the World Awards. In May even three-star Michelin chef Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck (number three on the list) paid a visit.
Every winter many of Cape Town’s best restaurants run unbeatable specials. La Colombe offers a five-course winter special menu for R310 (R380 if
partnered with wine). This might be one of the most elaborate loss-leaders in the world, in the sense of a product sold at an unprofitably low price to stimulate other purchases. It worked.
My aperitif, a modest flute of High Constantia sparkling wine, was R80 (a mark-up of more than 200%).
The main interior is comfortable enough, but it doesn’t quite convince — it’s elegant, but with a number of details, inadequacies and compromises that add up to an odd makeshift feel, like those patios that have been converted into rooms in some homes. Neither were things helped when we were shown to our table in an echoey corner surrounded by ugly, framed diploma-like prizes, certificates and awards, things that remind one of a high school foyer.
Except one goes to La Colombe for the food, to gape at it, talk about it, taste it and talk some more about it.
Forget about any other conversation. The à la carte menu is in classic style on a blackboard, now written mostly in English, which is a relief for most of its diners, though the chalkmanship could have been better.
Fricassée of quail and langoustine (R175) was a tempting starter with assiette (platter) of suckling pig (R195) for a main, but nothing was nearly as exciting as its set menus.
While one decides, the waiters bring a choice of breads, including a pleasingly fluffy sun-dried tomato focaccia. The restaurant goes all out with its amuse-gueules, no fewer than four different items, one on a ceramic tile, another on a wooden stick like a tongue depressor. I didn’t enjoy taking in what felt like an applicator, nevertheless the savoury salad on the end of the stick was worth risking the gag reflex for. There was also a delicious square of foie gras pâté and sheets of wafer-thin, dry pork crackling.
The first course is an assortment of cold comestibles (I will attempt to translate as we go along): two discs of ballotine (in this case a gelatinous roll of rabbit, with mild chorizo, lardo, date and slivers of pistachio), a short cigar of rabbit liver Royale (think pâté); cep (mushroom) dust, fig purée, cep and sage brioche.
This was paired with a spirited, lightly wooded Remhoogte Chenin Blanc 2008. The presentation is delicate, with small portions, yet they accumulate to just the right quantity, leaving one satiated, yet not brim full. Nouvelle cuisine is now a byword for satire on food, although we should be thankful for its lasting
effects, having demolished the over-the-top conclusion to the gourmet cooking of the Seventies.
Second course: a golden pastry discus of beetroot tart, with apple and beet relish, capped by goat’s cheese fondant (an airy paste, resembling a creamy topping), olive and palm sugar tapenade drizzled in a circle around it, with whole roasted individual garlic cloves (still in their skins) and cherry tomato halves. This was matched with a young, wooded Anura Chardonnay 2009.
The timing throughout the evening was good, though the wine service sometimes lagged.
Next, a tataki of springbok (think thick cut, faintly seared carpaccio, marinated and seasoned with pounded ginger), black pickled celeriac, pine nut gremolata (sprinkled over) and a single green baby asparagus (not mentioned on the menu), accompanied by yet another youthful, wooded white; a grassy Nitida Semillon 2009.
Dale-Roberts succeeds in bringing presentation, texture and flavour in gratifying harmony.
The slightly more substantial portion of pan-fried kingklip came just in time as a relief from all the titbits; served with a temperate curry velouté, a ridge of Thai style quinoa (a fine grain native to South America where it is used to make anything from risotto to cake) and topped with a baby watercress salad and cucumber salsa. The nicely matured Signal Hill Grenache Blanc 2007 had the right fruitiness, yet I began to wish for at least one unwooded white during this meal.
Only once in five courses did a waiter not know which choice of wine went with a dish he was serving to our four diners. This briefly ownerless dish was the alternative fourth course, a sous-vide (vacuum-cooked at low temperature for an extended period) rib-eye, with fondant potato and a black pepper bordelaise sauce, complemented by a rich berry Hartenberg Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz 2007.
For dessert I chose the frozen beetroot parfait (beetroot and apple sorbet) with a glass of Joostenberg Noble Late Harvest 2009.
There is no need to wait for a special occasion; eating here is a special occasion. You have until the end of September for the winter menu.
La Colombe, Constantia Uitsig,
Spaanschemat River Road,
Constantia. Tel: 021 794 2390