Tiny South Africa beach restaurant is best in world
PARIS: A tiny beach restaurant in an isolated South African fishing village was named the best in the world recently.
Chef Kobus van der Merwe, who only began to properly cook when he was 30, forages every day for ingredients on the wild Atlantic shore of the Western Cape near his Wolfgat restaurant, where he also makes his own bread and butter.
The Wolfgat — whose mostly female staff have no formal training — opened just two years ago in a 130-year- old cottage and cave on the beach at Paternoster.
Its seven- course tasting menu costs the equivalent of 53 euros ( RM252), a fraction of what you would pay at a top Paris table.
But its humble setting, and Van der Merwe’s belief in sustainable, back-to-basics cooking won over the judges of the inaugural World Restaurant Awards in the French capital.
The 38-year- old, who can only feed 20 people at a sitting, told AFP, “I don’t feel worthy. My staff who go out every day gathering herbs, succulents and dune spinach, should be here... It’s their baby.
“I can’t wait to celebrate with them with a big glass of South African sparkling wine.”
With dishes such as twicecooked laver (seaweed), angelfish with bokkom sambal and wild garlic masala, limpets, mussels and sea vegetables harvested within sight of its “stoep” ( porch), Wolfgat also won the prize for best “Off-Map Destination”.
Bearded Van der Merwe — a former journalist — said apart from the influence of the subtle spices of local Cape Malay cooking, his philosophy was to “interfere as little as possible with the products, and to keep them pure, raw and untreated.”
“It’s a very minimalist approach — it doesn’t make sense to gather amazing herbs but then transform them into a sauce that has nothing to do with them,” he added.
He said his win was a victory for the African “continent and my beautiful, diverse country”.
I don’t feel worthy. My staff who go out every day gathering herbs, succulents and dune spinach, should be here... It’s their baby. Kobus van der Merwe, chef of Wolfgat restaurant
No-nonsense restaurants known for their affordable food featured prominently in the awards, set up by one of the 50 Best Restaurants list’s own founders, Joe Warwick, to challenge its primacy.
While the 50 Best has been hit by allegations of lobbying and bias against French cuisine, the new awards claim to pride themselves on their “diversity and integrity”, with 50 men and 50 women on the judging panels.
Nor were they afraid to send up industry cliches with a range of tongue-in- cheek prizes for the “Tattoo-free chef of the year” and the “Tweezer-free kitchen of the year”.
Sao Paulo’s lively Mocoto, named for the Brazilian cow’s hoof stew its serves, won the “No Reservations Required” category, while the house special went to Italy’s rather ritzier Lido 84 — overlooking Lake Garda — which boils its “cacio e pepe” pasta inside a pig’s bladder.
Andoni Luis Aduriz, regarded as Spain’s most pioneering chef since El Bulli’s Ferran Adria hung up his apron, won the “Forward Drinking” prize for the breadth and value of the wine list at his San Sebastian eaterie, Mugaritz.
The “Event of the year” continued the down-to- earth theme of the World Restaurant Awards, going to the Refugee Food Festival, which began in France and has now spread to 18 cities worldwide.
It completed a French hat-trick of top prizes with the legendary La Mere Brazier in the country’s culinary capital of Lyon taking the “Enduring Classic” crown, while the top- end Paris table Le Clarence won for “Original Thinking”.
Ireland scored a surprise double, with two Cork restaurants bringing home prizes. Ballymaloe House won for best dessert trolley and the vegetarian mecca Paradiso for its hook up with Gortnanain Farm.
Judges including Rene Redzepi of Denmark’s Noma restaurant, cook book king Yotam Ottolenghi and Northern Irish chef Clare Smyth, the fi rst woman to win three Michelin stars in Britain, also had to cogitate over which restaurant had the Instagram account (that of Paris vegetable guru Alain Passard). While Redzepi narrowly missed out on three prizes, his longtime Noma underling German-born Thomas Frebel won the “Arrival of year” prize for his new Tokyo table, Inua, which has been hailed as “Japan’s most exciting” new restaurant.