Rossouws Restaurants

Been waiting for the opening of this place for a while, and yesterday had a sneak preview since they have opened, but not officially. It’s what the trade call a soft opening, and the builders are still putting the finishing touches to the place, with 4×4 parking the order of the day.

And what a place. It’s a peerless location, even for the Cape. Lord Somerset’s old hunting lodge, the inside is beautiful and intriguingly shaped and the lawns outside are all being contoured to offer superb al fresco come summer. Fittings are high end, and a real sense of quality pervades. They’ve chosen to train raw staff up (excepting the kitchen, thank goodness) and this translates into very enthusiastic, real interaction, such that would make any slips excusable (not that there were any yesterday, although we were the only “test” table).

I need to disclose that our arrival, while unannounced as ususual, was far from incognito as the owners know me and Fasie Malherbe took the opportunity to show us around - and then supervised our lunch with bouyant charm and his trademark explosive adjectives, which indicate pleasure in his lexicon: smash, hit, flog.

I’ll not detail the food as he made it clear that there is still a good deal of experimentation and settling in to be done, suffice to say that the quality is very good in general, and the prices (around R230 for three courses) are great value. They also offer (well considered) wine pairings and have a superlative collection of whiskies and bourbons and vodkas which do easily drive the costs up. The wine list is good, and very (even surprisingly) well-priced.

This place, should they stay on the trajectory I saw yesterday, is going to rock. Upstairs for bespoke dining, with lovely tables for groups and amazing window tables; downstairs for family eating “Rumbullion” style (a word that means “great tumult or uproar”). I look forward to returning.