ROUND TRIP
The Roundhouse in
Cape Town has had a makeover … introducing Salsify, a brand-new restaurant brought to you by Luke Dale Roberts and Ryan Cole.
Yes, Luke Dale Roberts has opened a new restaurant, but it’s head chef Ryan Cole you should pay attention to this time. Straight off the back of helping The Test Kitchen secure the title of Best Restaurant in Africa, he’s now headlining Salsify at the Roundhouse
CHEF RYAN COLE
likes things how he likes them. There’s a way of doing things. Whether it’s cutting an onion, packing the fridge, even washing the plates his food is served on – it’s all become part of a shorthand he’s spent the past three-and-a-half years refining as head chef of the number one restaurant in Africa*, spoken in a dialect wholly unique to his brigade at The
Test Kitchen.
“The challenges of setting up a new kitchen team are immeasurable,” he says during a short break on the day before the official media launch of Salsify at the Roundhouse – his first restaurant – headed up in business partnership with Luke Dale Roberts and Luke’s wife Sandalene. “I’m OCD to the moon and all the way back. At The Test Kitchen, I could say, ‘Make me this, do that for me,’ and there were 15 people who could do exactly what I wanted because they’d had three years of training with me.
Now I’ve got eight new guys in a kitchen that’s open for lunch and dinner. There was no masterclass where I went ‘This is how we do things’. I have to show each person, this is what I want from you. Eight times over. It’s hectic pressure, but I mean, that’s what keeps you alive.”
While sipping on a cortado, Ryan sits on the deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean outside the historic building that was, until very recently, occupied by the Roundhouse Restaurant. The screech of an angle grinder fades in and out of earshot as workmen wielding planks, power tools and paint tins enter and exit the building like marching ants. Intermittently, chefs and staff congregate in small clusters on the lawn for smoke breaks. Luke’s just returned from a recce to find a light stand for a selfie booth in the drinks lounge that’s been freshly graffitied by Louis de Villiers, the artist formerly known as SkullBoy. Sandalene, who has continued the tradition of creating the interiors for all her husband’s restaurants, is overseeing last-minute finishing touches, not least of which is the hanging of four full-length mirrors in the circular entrance hall that houses a 1.3-metre bronze statue by sculptor Otto du Plessis. Salsify, as Sandalene has christened her, was finished in the nick of time, just the week before. The body is almost defiant in its Tree yoga pose, while the stylised partridge head, conversely, seems to gaze impassively at the unfolding action.
If it sounds as if the restaurant opened in record time, that’s because it did.
Less than two months ago rugby legend Ray Mordt, who took over the lease of the property in 2017, approached Sandalene to breathe new life into the building. Before she knew it, she had not only agreed to completely overhaul the interior in just five weeks, she had also roped in Luke and Ryan to head up the new restaurant. Miraculously, despite the tight deadline and some unforeseen disasters (two ovens breaking, a freezer going on the fritz) Ryan is more or less ready.
AT SALSIFY’S “SOFT OPENING”
the night before, 20 of Ryan, Luke and Sandalene’s friends and family had acted as a supportive sounding board for the new team’s debut. In a reversal of roles, Luke manned the pass, calling dockets – a relinquishing of power he admits he finds challenging. “It’s important that I’m here to support him,” Luke had said earlier, with Ryan safely out of earshot in the kitchen. “It’s his kitchen. So if an onion needs peeling, I’ll peel it.”
“BUT THAT’S THE THING. WE’RE UNBOXED. WE’RE UNHINGED. WE’RE JUST DOING WHATEVER WE WANT” – RYAN COLE
It’s a big deal, handing Ryan the proverbial keys to the castle, but Luke believes it’s time. “It’s something we’ve often discussed,” he says. “Everyone who’s talented and ambitious is going to want to run their own kitchen.
At The Test Kitchen you can learn a lot from me, but it’s still my kitchen.”
Getting a new restaurant off the ground – training staff, putting systems in place, refining menus, dealing with whatever challenges a new day may bring – is part of a necessary learning curve that can only happen when you’re in the thick of things, according to Luke. “When I first arrived in South Africa and started at La Colombe, I had nothing,” he says. “I think everyone’s gotta claw their way up a bit. Then those successes are that much more meaningful.”
By all accounts, it was a good dummy run. Good, but not perfect. “I have this insatiable desire to do better all the time,” says Ryan, his coffee long since finished. You can practically see the cogs whirring in his head as he runs through mental checklists of everything that still needs to be done before tomorrow night, when the who’s who of the food industry will turn up with high expectations and opinions aplenty. Talking food philosophy and menu inspiration is the last thing he’s probably in the mood for, but he’s obliging. And once he starts talking, there’s no stopping the stream of consciousness that ricochets from lacto-fermented apple cider bread to fish liver crème brûleé to lamb leg tartare to tonka-bean margaritas. His delivery
is staccato and fast, as if his words can hardly keep up with his thoughts. It’s completely mesmerising to hear. “Goat’s milk has just come back into season, because it’s spring, obviously,” he starts. “So I’m, like, what can I do with goat’s milk? I chat to Pepe [Charlot, from
Dairy Chez Pépé in Kommetjie]. ‘Pepe, I really want to use goat’s milk. Do you know what kefir is?’ He’s like, ‘I’ll look into it.’ He comes back a week later, says, ‘I tried to make it, I’ll leave you the first bottle.’ So, I’m like, cool, let’s make a goat’s-milk kefir ice cream. But, then it’s going to be too heavy and I’m gonna lose that soft subtlety … Okay, tried it, complete disaster. ‘Pepe, I need more.’ I try to make a fro-yo and then I seize it. ‘Pepe, I need another bottle.’ Then I look at it: you don’t work in a sorbet, you don’t work in an ice cream. I want to use you. How? What if you go into an espuma gun? Put that into nitrogen. Then you have these little puffs of cloud. Seems obvious, right? I did it and was, like, that’s it, perfect! It’s soft and light. You get the goat, there’s a bit of vanilla in there. I season it with a bit of lime. Pineapple, tropical, southeast Asia …
I’m like, ‘Remember when you were in Cambodia? Fresh coconut. Lime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just build a dish around it.”
The resulting dessert is as meticulous as the thought process behind it is unfettered. In the kitchen, Ryan puts a speckled grey ceramic bowl on a stainless-steel counter, turns around and picks up an unwieldy bottle of liquid nitrogen that he proceeds to pour over the subtly sweet kefir, sending clouds of fog wafting everywhere. Chef ’s tweezers in hand, he adds nuggets of coconutand-cardamom banana bread, a few pieces of glossy caramelised pineapple, wafer-thin matcha-dusted shards of coconut meringue and microherbs. Droplets of vivid green coriander dressing and a drizzle of mango lassi go on last. It’s all incredibly delicate and nuanced. Conspicuously so in Sandalene’s interior, where Louis de Villiers was given free rein to create gritty, confrontational murals punctuated by graffiti depicting the somewhat chequered history of the Roundhouse.
“It’s a bit of a juxtaposition, hey?” says Ryan laughing. “The restaurant offers a world of opposites. I feel like that’s what’s so special about it. You’ve got the sea room and that’s the conventional side of it. And then you go in and you’ve got graffiti on the wall. Like, whaaah! Which one are we? But that’s the thing. We’re unboxed. We’re unhinged. We’re just doing whatever we want.”
LOOKING AT RYAN’S FOOD, tasting it (octopus with oysters and sea vegetables in tomato water; spice-fired tuna with atchar, dhania dressing and tomato jelly; a play on strawberry jam scones
“WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN SOUTH AFRICA AND STARTED AT LA COLOMBE, I HAD NOTHING. I THINK EVERYONE’S GOTTA CLAW THEIR
WAY UP A BIT”
– LUKE DALE ROBERTS
with Champagne), his dishes seem surprisingly resolved considering that they were conjured and refined in a matter of weeks. Impressed as he is, Luke says the best is yet to come: “When opening a new restaurant, your first menu is usually a mish-mash of your own ideas that you’re taking from old experiences. You’re trying new ideas that you haven’t experimented with, but you don’t want to take too many risks … and then two weeks in, you can really start creating. Those are the dishes that have the real impact.”
As Ryan said, it’s hectic pressure. But, he’s no rookie either. “It’s not like it’s new to me,” he says matter of factly. “I’ve always worked in kitchens that were really difficult and held myself to the highest standards.” That said, he’s also embracing the fact that Salsify is a work in progress. “There’s no preset ‘this is what we do. This is us.’ We’re finding our way. We’re discovering our way.” And with that, he gets up and heads back inside. As it says in Louis’ signature graffiti scrawl above the kitchen door: “Tempus fugit (time flies).”