February 2025
I visited the restaurant ‘Salon’ during my month-long stay in the Cape Town area and the Stellenbosch wine region.
The restaurant is located a few kilometers outside the old town in a complex that used to be a cookie mill and is therefore called ‘Old biscuit mill’. Since then, creative and alternative stores and local crafts have moved in. I came on a Saturday when the weekly market was taking place and the place was packed with people. I had to look for the restaurant and found it above a 2nd-hand clothes stall on the second floor of a building.
The ‘Salon’ restaurant is the brainchild of chef Luke Dale Roberts, who founded the award-winning restaurant ‘The Test Kitchen’ in the ‘Old Biscuit Mill’ in 2010, thereby shaping the restaurant scene in Cape Town. Now he wants to write a new chapter with the ‘Salon’.
The restaurant is modeled on a European salon.
I received the menu and explanations in this letter.
The envelope contained a map of the dishes and flavors of the countries featured in the menu, which the chef had visited over the decades, partly as a traveler and partly as a worker there. We started in South Africa, traveled on to Mexico, England, then to Italy, Morocco, France and for the dessert to the Philippines. I was excited!
The menu
We start with Salon Snacks. Top left is ‘Slangetjies’, a local specialty. A mixture of flour, cumin and chilli is deep-fried in sunflower oil. On the right is the lamb roti and at the bottom an oyster with jalapeno chilli. A successful start!
This is served with a sparkling wine made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes from Graham Beck. It tastes unusual on its own, but goes perfectly with the course.
Nun reisen wir kulinarisch nach Mexiko.
Es wird ein Tequilla-basierter Cocktail mit Saladito serviert. Saladitos sind getrocknete und gesalzene mexikanische Pflaumen oder Aprikosen. Er schmeckt!
Chipotle tuna sandwich with smoked pineapple, coriander pesto, masa harina (corn dough flour) and chipotle dressing
The coriander was dried with nitrogen and sprinkled over the dish at the table.
Interesting!
The next course is accompanied by a 2013 Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine from Jaques Bruére in the Cape region. Although the wine had won many awards, I thought it was good, but not exceptional.
I receive a wonderful lemon brioche from England. Next to it is a Parmesan butter with Parmesan flakes on top and in the foreground is the jam with roasted onions. Wonderful!
Now we travel to Sicily in Italy. Octopus and fish are served in a red pepper and saffron emulsion in a bowl designed by local artist Botha. It is accompanied by a 2021 single vineyard Chardonnay ‘Apogé’ from the La Vierge winery.
Unfortunately, the flavors of the emulsion were so dominant that the octopus and fish did not come into their own.
We stay in Italy, where we are served kingklip wrapped in ham (why Italy, because kingklip is a local fish that is not found in Italy). On the right is a ravioli with tarragon foam and on the bottom a cashew nut cream with a fishbone sauce.
This is served with a white blend 2022, 62% of which is from the Rousanne grape, from the Kumusha winery.
The chef recommends eating everything together, which results in a blend of all these flavors. I am not a fan of this approach, because in my view the result is a one-size-fits-all taste that no longer reveals the individual high-quality foods.
Now we travel on to Morocco, where we are served this lamb neck tangine (lamb neck from the traditional clay pot), mutabal (eggplant puree from Arabic cuisine), grapes and pickled lemon. It tastes good!
A 2022 Syrah from two different vineyards of the Mullineux wine estate in Swartland, a wine region north of Cape Town, is served with it. The wine is excellent on its own, but with this course it falls flat. What a shame!
In France, we enjoy a duck suzette (instead of crêpes suzette). The ingredients are a seven-day aged duck breast on a citrus emulsion and a celeriac puree on the right of the plate. At the table, a crêpe is prepared with Grand Marnier and placed on top of the duck.
This is served with an assemblage of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Viognier from the Morgenster wine estate near Stellenbosch. The wine can keep up with the intense aromas of the dish and even improve on them!
An homage to the Philippines is paid with this dessert called ‘Tropica’, which consists of lemongrass jelly, coconut-lime sorbet, pineapple foam and litchi granita. Again, there are too many different flavors in one course, so no flavors stick at all.
The wine accompaniment was a slightly sweet Chenin Blanc from ‘House of Hier’ from 2022.
A Luxemburgerli with the coffee
The bill
At around ZAR 2,600 (CHF 128, EUR 135, USD 142), this experience was more expensive than in other restaurants in the area.
While some of the courses were convincing, I expected more from the ‘Salon’.
This text is an automatic English translation from the German original by deepl.com