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They warn you on the phone that here you have only three options: four course a la carte; six course chef’s menu; or six courses with wine pairings. It’s serious stuff. We were all set on the six course, planning to trust our own wine pairings - though it must be said that the matches proposed by sommelier Neil were good (not something you can always take for granted). But by the time our excitement at launching into the six abated a little and we looked at the four course a la carte, we jumped sides. The four seemed to have more adventurous options on the night.

Mine were: Fois gras terrine with smyrna fig and brioche in a cylinder; goat’s cheese souffle; lamb on a bed of finely sliced green beans with a sublime truffly jus; and a berry tart to finish. The flavours were poised and elegant, the plating (on own design crockery) enticing. Higg’s is a “less is more” man, understating rather than obliterating the fine ingredients he employs.

This is one of the Cape’s, and South Africa’s, great food experiences. THM had to agree that even his morose mood (apparently a regular Friday occurrence) was mitigated and excised by the evening. A last detail - for being housed on a wine farm, their wine list is not only interesting, but also very politely priced, so that you can properly enjoy all the delights detailed on the menus.

Wines of South Africa had just received a R250K budget from the Winelands mayor to develop an initiative called “Laduma” which is going to train staff in food and wine environments to deal with people just like THM. Skills development and the development of the Cape winelands as a tourist destination - a lovely synergy for all of us who like our wine and food and like to see the local populace find useful jobs in the sector.

Terroir employ very local staff. It is no secret that the one thing that the Cape does not accomplish as well as Gauteng is service. In good establishments, like this one, local is very lekker since the staff are devoid of any snobbery. At the same time, you do want to understand what’s on the menu and you want to hear it from someone who seems passingly interested in the whole business - which is not always the case. Again, Terroir have got the balance right, and it clearly took training, something that not all restaurants are willing to invest in. Enter Laduma!

Terroir continues to tantalise me. The food is deceptively accomplished, but the flip-side is that I sometimes feel that all the obvious energy and effort that has gone onto the plates has not culminated in greatness, has not built upon itself. Take my starter today. Confit duck with lentils, the dish featured a superb sauce with prune and earthy flavours, but was to my mind needlessly built on slices of salami. I also found very few pulses, one of the reasons I ordered the dish. Meanwhile, THM’s salmon “gratin” over asparagus was deceptively delicious, the citrus-spiked gratin a masterpiece.

Mains, THM had a wild mushroom enveloped pasta which was subtlely delicious; while I had a sublime piece of lamb shoulder that was cooked sous vide. For more on this technique of cooking in sealed bags slowly and at low temperatures, go here. The meat is incredibly tender, textured and flavourful.

Speaking after lunch to chef Michael Broughton, I asked him about his mission for Terroir to reflect food of the region and he asserted that his suppliers are still the local ones that he has always used. But then why the exceptions - eg fois gras and scallops? “Why put them on the menu?” I asked. “People ask for them”, was the reply, “the scallop starter (from over the Atlantic) is my most successful”.

Ah yes, as ever the balance between idealism and the winking eye of Mammon.

Once you’ve had your fill, you keep a few pieces and decide to use it in a Niçoise-style dish, like the salad. So that’s easy, I thought: potato, green bean, olive, maybe boiled egg, olive oil. But I was wrong. The Hungry Man got me thinking as he called to ask about dressing for Niçoise and I said: “Just good olive oil”. Then I pulled out the Larousse. A la Niçoise for fish turns out to be with coarsely chopped seeded tomato, anchovy fillet, olives and (sometimes) anchovy butter.

A salad Niçoise features tomato, cucumber, fava beans or artichokes, green peppers, raw onion, hard-boiled egg, anchovy fillet or tuna, black olives, olive oil, garlic and basil. But no potato. Turns out that, to be proper, potato only finds its place in a Niçoise set-up when you use it in a Niçoise garnish for large cuts of meat or poultry (when beans, courgettes and artichokes also make an appearance).

You may not have heard of Pane e Vino, but you’re likely to have heard of the Dalla Cia family, dad Giorgio the legendary erstwhile wine-maker for Meerlust, now busy with his own operation, which now has a base in Bosman’s Crossing, Stellenbosch, with son George also involved, and his wife Elena cooking at this eaterie.

Don’t know where Bosman’s Crossing is? Well, that is a part of the problem that the wineries and businesses here face. This precinct is supposed to refresh a part of Stellenbosch that has languished, and a few wineries have led the charge, including Stellekaya, Dalla Cia, Vilafonte and the large distributor, Vinimark. In brief, it is behind the Oude Libertas, but has little presence.

Dalla Cia features a couple of wines and that line of grappas. Part of the family, Pane e Vino is a restaurant that sits alongside the Dalla Cia operation and doubles up as their tasting room. It’s directly Italian, in the spirit of keeping it real. When the throngs have arrived, it is a little too real, with Elena trying to slice the cold cuts and attend to the sauces and boil the pastas seemingly on her own (and falling behind an honest hunger). They also post all their meals on one small blackboard at the deli counter, which necessitates unwelcome repeated trips, especially when you see ready-made plates behind the counter (and then wonder, when the microwave pings, if the bell tolls for you).

The Hungry Man and I spoke about a number of issues, mostly rather momentous, so they don’t make great blogging material… the loss of someone close, the dangers of loose lips, the questions of where to be in five years. In a nutshell:

Tagliolini al Limone - a masterpiece of fresh pasta with bright lemon, fresh and springy. Melanzane alla Parmigiana - tough and obviously reheated. Gnocchi di Semolino - rounds of plain semolina, a real Italian dish, naked, all about texture but lacking the diversification of some fantastic parmesan. Saltinbocca alla Romana - chicken given the treatment, tasty enough, but with some tired looking spinach and mash. Vitello Tonnato - a big helping of some rather bland tonnato, though the veal was well poached. Tortellini al Pomodoro - maybe the best dish of the meal, again the pasta was fresh, and the filling good.

It’s an unprepossessing place, so that’s no reason to return. The food quality could do it, but all the plates we tried were R50 plus for a small portion, so they consistently needed to be good to great, which they weren’t. Keeping it real? The waitress explaining a dish on the menu as “cold meats that we sommer (kinda) slice up” - that’s real too.

I’ll return in a while. There’s heart here.

Sunday was instructive. On our way to Noordhoek, we tried making a reservation for late lunch at Foodbarn (full) and Cafe Roux (full). We finally snagged a res at Catharina’s, Steenberg, but then they called back to say it was buffet, and by 2pm the display may look a little ragged (no thanks). So we thought we’d take our chances, and stopped at Foodbarn (still full) and Roux (ditto). So we moved on to Hout Bay to try Chapman’s Peak Hotel for calamari (no joy). Surely that emporium of eating and knick-knacks for tourists, Mariner’s Wharf? A half-hour wait. Back to Chapman’s as it was now 3pm. “Still a half-hour wait” we’re told. So we finally found succour at Trattoria Luigi in Hout Bay and were well treated and pretty well fed.

The spontaneous Cape lunch on a Sunday, notably a holiday… be warned.

Now there are some restaurants you would never compress into a double-header. Yesterday’s were not of that kind. Both FSH and Cranks are flagrantly WSIWYG. FSH is a designer-modern fish eaterie with some pretensions to class (but like many of these, you are safest sticking to the most basic meals, I chose sushi, poor, and fish and chips, good - but also a tomato tart, mistake). Cranks is one of the most idiosyncratic places in Jozi: Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, the place all mad colour and pattern and huge insect sculptures straight out of a William Burrough’s nightmare. The menu is difficult to understand, even when you’re reading the English. The food is often served in plastic crockery, or half a pineapple. And it’s full bore flavour, but not the best ingredients, so all the signification does not add up.

Double lunches. Even if you sample, you feel full from the mental appreciation of all that food.

Today, I found myself deep in the belly of the beast, the Mandela Square in Sandton. On a whim, and after careful consultation with a shoe-shine man, I decided to try Pigalle for lunch. A fabulously faux interior pulls out all the stops to be grand in an old school fashion, the service is swift and unctuous, and the fact that they specialise in seafood platters is made clear. A correspondent has mentioned that they do great oysters, and the langoustines certainly looked great, but I was going to put them to the Caesar salad test, followed by some bacalhau, which I was excited to see tucked away at the back of the menu.

The Caesar was a travesty. Cos was advertised, but I got frilly fancy leaves. I also got tomato? The dressing was mayo and the bacon was stone hard. It was a big portion, about the only positive. I told the waiter that this was not a Caesar and he them hurriedly informed me that it was their “twist” on one…

After a long wait, the bacalhau arrived and this was solid and very traditional. In fact you could have “gomes sa” or “a bras” in addition to the grilled with onion and olive that I had. A good plate.

In all, this is an expense account masterpiece of a restaurant as the many business people attested to.

The menu is plain and old-fashioned, few choices and mainly meat, but even these are limited. Which is reassuring. My rare rump was good, the chips were excellent. The Grillhouse sauce was clumsy, the Caesar salad to start was a travesty (chard leaves?), and the NY style cheesecake was average. So, a good showing on the main course, but the rest is average to poor. And in light of my recent steak at Belthazar, this steak has to take a place on the podium as good, no more. But I wish more places would base their service on this rock.