April 2024
While traveling to Namibia, I stopped in the Cape area for two weeks in April 2024. The ‘Pier’ is said to be one of the best fine dining restaurants in Cape Town, which was a good reason for me to visit. The restaurant is part of the La Colombe group, whose flagship restaurant ‘La Colombe’ I visited in 2017. As the restaurant is well-known, it is advisable to book early.
The restaurant is located on the top floor of the Pierhead building in the V&A Waterfront, above the Waterside Restaurant, which is also part of the La Colombe group. Due to its elevated position, it offers a view of the harbor.
My travel partner and I opted for the Chefs Menu (on the left of the menu) with the Classic Pairing (on the right). As I’m writing this website more than a year after the visit and didn’t take any notes, I unfortunately don’t remember the details of the meal.
Our first course
The cornets are topped with salmon eggs, horseradish and dill. A creative presentation!
The toasts are topped with Black Forest ham, pumpkin and goat’s cheese.
Oysters, apple, foam
A creamy velouté sauce was prepared at the table for the oysters.
This was placed in the oyster shell and garnished with pieces of apple and a foam.
The excellent sourdough bread is served with other dishes containing octopus, peri-peri (a small hot chili pepper), bone marrow, smoked mussels, chorizo, toasted yeast and sour cream butter.
The next course consisted of lightly seared pieces of Szechuan tuna, tamarind spice, ponzu (a Japanese seasoning sauce based on citrus fruits and soy sauce) and basil.
We then received this bowl of crayfish, pork, spiced coconut and kimchi.
Then scallops with peas, bacon and dashi (a Japanese fish broth)
To keep us moving, we were invited to a counter where we could watch the preparation of the next course. A calamansi (a citrus fruit) was poached with ice-cold nitrogen.
This creative surprise cooled the tongue at first, but quickly melted and ended with an intense citrus flavor. Wonderful!
From the cheese trolley we were offered exclusively South African cheeses, which tasted excellent.
For dessert, we were served an XO brandy from the Tokara winery in Stellenbosch, which I visited later.
The friandises consisted of pralines with the flavors raspberry, rose, hibiscus and litchi, which were served on sea salt. A few grains of salt stuck to the pralines and provided an interesting contrast between sweet and salty.
We were very satisfied with our visit to the ‘Pier’. For around CHF 200 (EUR 205, USD 220) we enjoyed a strong culinary performance. The wines were also excellent.
This text is an automatic English translation from the German original by deepl.com.