@ The Greenhouse
Constantia: 021 794 2137
* * * * *
93 Brommersvlei Road
Constantia Heights
Dinner Tuesday to Saturday
7 - 9pm (booking essential)
Take your pick from two menus at The Greenhouse, both boasting colourful, imaginative and exciting dishes. Even the snacks are luscious flavour bites, writes Jos Baker.
IF AS a child you were told not to play with your food, slip those inhibiting shackles on your eating habits. For this is food for the playful gods – and there’s no need to travel to the heights of Mount Olympus to find it. You can take the epicurean journey in Constantia (booking essential) in the streamlined setting of a revamped restaurant.
Gone are the simpering ceramic rabbits; in their place, simplicity. Dark tables, leather-clad chairs and a total lack of clutter – even on the plate. An emphasis on air and light, with strategically placed mirrors reflecting views of the garden for a totally positive “greenhouse effect”.
And enjoying himself hugely is executive chef and gastronomic adventurer Peter Tempelhoff.
The only Relais & Chateaux Grand Chef in South Africa, Peter is a rare blend. He’s a chef who understands economics, having studied the subject at university. But his passion for cooking saw him enroll at the Institute of Culinary Arts in Cape Town, where he finished top of his class, landing a bursary to attend the Culinary Institute of America.
To my mind, his London experience – working at Quo Vadis under Michelin-starred chef Marco Pierre White, and at Giorgio Locatelli's one-starred restaurant Zafferano, plus the prestigious appointment as executive chef at the award-winning Automat restaurant in Mayfair – has left a lasting influence on his cooking style.
And his individual, quirky sense of humour has obviously rubbed off on his kitchen team: beer, crisps and pretzels translates as a spoon of ice-cream with a hint of beer’s bitterness, served on potato purée with crumbed pretzels for a salty finish.
You share in the cooking experience, with no effort involved. You simply watch dough proof under a neat glass cloche on the table, till the time is judged right for baking. It’s then whipped away to the kitchen, to return as a perfectly baked, light and slightly sweet roll.
The specific grain you watch rising is teff, thought to be the oldest grain cultivated by man, and believed to have originated in Ethiopia in about 4000-1000 B.C E. In Ethiopia today (and in Ethiopian restaurants world-wide), teff is usually ground into flour and fermented to make sourdough bread known as injera, and used as an edible serving plate. The Greenhouse’s more sophisticated treatment heads the gluten-free grain’s penetration into the heath-food sphere. (Move over quinoa).
But back to the menu – or menus, for there are two. You’ll be guided through the differences by attentive and knowledgeable waiters, with an equally professional sommelier to take you through the wines, or artisan beer pairing. A table of two should choose the spring menu as it offers either/or options, which means you can each choose a different dish, and then share – as we did.
The intimate taste space (just 45 seats) is set to showcase local fresh produce. Eye appeal is an important ingredient: I defy you to start eating before admiring the plating. The understated, enticing combinations, rooted in South Africa, bring our culinary standards in line with international winners: colourful, imaginative, always exciting – and often unrecognisable. Even the snacks, like forest mushroom cheesecake topped with sherry, are luscious flavour bites, the crunchy bases supporting a smooth, intense mushroom paté, and ending in an aftertaste of melting sherry.
Local sources are accented to give a feeling of place and quality. Laingsburg lamb surprises by updating tradition, combining loin and shank with cumin carrots, truffled mielie meal and tamatie (and it works); home-produced Huguenot cheese is a must-try for the marked difference in the flavour at 56ºC, 20ºC, 8ºC, -2ºC.
Titles of dishes accent Peter’s playful mood: in “The Duck, the Ostrich and the big Num-Num” (fynbos, smoke, fruit beer, liver and fermented mushroom flavours) study the shape of the sauce for the full impact); in “Release the Kraken”, look for the tentacles. This magic dish of octopus, ginger ink, minute crisp green apple balls, has dry ice-chilled powdered gamefish dressing spooned onto the plate at the table, so that the powerful aromas swirl round you.
Should you crave dishes that smack of the sea, there’s perfectly cooked flaky kabeljou with brassicass (in this case cauliflower and broccoli) romesco, a nut and red pepper-based sauce originating in north-eastern Spain, where it was eaten with fish, and for full colour impact, bright green herb beurre noisette, added at the table. Or try a teasing take on sushi: a perlemoen “sosatie”, offering tender toothpick-skewered perlemoen, plated with a small ball of rice, sesame dashi, seaweed and soy.
I insisted on ordering the “Nutella Banana Pancake” – an indulgent mix of hazelnuts, Madagascan chocolate, caramelised banana and crispy crêpes. I couldn’t face the alternative, simply headed “Samp, Milk and Honey”.
Sounding like nursery fare, it is anything but. Banish any preconceived notions you may have about samp. The-ice cold kanten is smooth, subtle and delicious; tiny balls of pear offer the sharp taste of saki; the deep- fried milk skin is like a tulle biscuit, adding crunch, while the jasmine, flowering at the moment, provides seasonality to the sauce and afragrant ending to the meal. My London Cordon Bleu companion had to surrender several spoonfuls.
Portion sizes are perfectly judged. I went home to my St Bernard empty handed.
l Six-course meal R590 (with cheese R110 as a supplement), R870 with paired wines; eight courses R820 or R1200 with paired wines.