For Peter Tempelhoff, a chef and their dishes are a product of all the meals they’ve eaten, chefs they’ve worked with, ingredients they’ve cooked and kitchen mishaps endured. He has been voted one of the best 200 chefs in the world by industry professionals for the past two years. In 2010, he was unanimously voted into the ranks of the Relais & Châteaux Grand Chefs which have more than 70 Michelin stars between them. He has been executive chef of the award-winning Liz McGrath Collection restaurants for more than a decade. In 2019, he’s officially stepped out of that comfort zone.

As a young chef in 1997, Tempelhoff worked as the line chef of the Grande Roche Hotel in Paarl. He sliced, diced, chopped and dolloped different textures and flavours to make tasting plates – an assiette. As he worked, he mused about one day opening his own restaurant called Assiette and serve only that, but he put the idea on the backburner.

Now he’s started his own restaurant, FYN, after 22 years in the business. It was only after the opening that he realised that the forgotten assiettes had been reincarnated as kaiseki trays and bento boxes. The plan had always been there, in the back of his mind, for more than two decades. He just hadn’t known it.

A kaiseki tray served at FYN. Photo: Bruce Tuck.

Much of his career was spent as the executive chef of the restaurants in the hotels of the Liz McGrath Collection. For more than a decade he oversaw four kitchens spread between Cape Town, Hermanus and Plettenberg Bay.

In the beginning, he rotated monthly between the kitchens. He got to stay in the lap of luxury at the hotels and to “… go down to the kitchen and work my ass off, which I really enjoyed. It was challenging but inspiring because I got to work with so many chefs. I had about 70 chefs working under me and they all looked to me for inspiration. I got something from that and it drove me to keep pushing the boundaries and teaching them.”

The hotelier icon at the head of the Collection, the late Liz McGrath, inspired him with her vision, her sense of style and her pursuit of excellence in not only food and décor but also in people.

“She would look for the right people and when she found them she would give them everything. She would mould them and teach them the ethos of excellence and improving yourself,” he recalls.

Greenhouse has long been the gem in the crown of the collection, so when the Grand Chefs from all over the world came to Cape Town to attend the Relais & Châteaux conference, that is where McGrath hosted them.

They were Tempelhoff’s icons and mentors and they gave him a standing ovation after the dinner. Not a month later, he was unanimously voted into their ranks as a Grand Chef. To this day, this is the award he has enjoyed receiving most.

“Why start my own restaurant now? Well, why not now? Eleven years is a long time in a job and I think I was stagnating a little bit, as much as I enjoyed it,” he explains.

Tempelhoff stayed with the collection for a few months after opening FYN, before stepping over completely into the new venture. For Ashley Moss, who had been the head chef at Greenhouse, it was a “no-brainer” to follow him to FYN and take on the role of executive chef.

He says they have created a completely different set up at FYN.

“It’s given us much more freedom because we started with a blank canvas. We’ve been part of the creative process from the start. That makes you feel a lot closer and attached to it… We haven’t just dropped in. We built it from the ground up.”

Peter Tempelhoff and Ashley Moss have both moved across to FYN as a team. Photo: Bruce Tuck.

FYN was built on a blank rooftop. Photo: Facebook

The restaurant is enclosed in glass and has views of both Lion’s Head and Table Mountain, as well as the city and Church Square. Photo: Facebook

Since Tempelhoff was a young boy he has been fascinated by Japanese food and culture and has visited Japan three times to eat and cook there. It’s no wonder then that his first restaurant is South African “…with a vein of Japanese running through it”.

For a visual clue into this theme, look not only to your plate but also the mural painted above the stairs to the mezzanine. Warren Petersen, known as Baked Ink, used his fine art and tattooing skills to conceptualise and paint the mural.

His “Africanese” style married well with the food philosophy of FYN, as he interprets African subject matter and narratives in a Japanese aesthetic while FYN interprets African ingredients using Japanese techniques.

Petersen used acrylic and oil paint to create the mural. He met the FYN team through Moss who he has tattooed before. Photo: Facebook

In this mural, he has painted a woman foraging through the veld. Petersen says she has no specific skin tone but has Japanese features to hint at the Japanese philosophy of achieving peace through the mastery of your craft. She is adorned with jewellery, a blanket and arrows to symbolise the South African cultures which FYN draws inspiration from.

“It also illustrates the diverse cultural influences and philosophy that make up the ‘common’ understanding of authentic South African flavours,” Petersen explains.

“She protectively cradles a blue crane which is our national bird and a symbol of bravery. She keeps South Africa close to her heart. She has a Japanese crane on her head resting in a basket with foraged ingredients looking down at her holding the blue crane as a symbol of good fortune and longevity,” says Petersen.

Her tattoos of FYN’s symbology show that she is etched onto FYN’s skin, and FYN is painted onto hers.

However, the philosophy is really put into practise through the food.

Tempelhoff, exhausted by long tasting menus which took hours to get through, decided to cut down the time without sacrificing flavour.

“People nowadays don’t have the time. They have six-second attention spans and then they want to do something else,” he explains.

His answer was the kaiseki tray.

“The idea of a kaiseki tray is shortness. It’s like a TV dinner or aeroplane food, if you will. It just comes all at once, which is kind of cool. From there, you expand it to a dessert and starter kaiseki tray and a main course plate and a couple of canapes in a bento box and then a palate cleanser and it’s done. By then you’ve had 11 courses,” he says.

Desserts are also presented as a kaiseki tray. Photo: Bruce Tuck

Bento boxes feature on the menu. Photo: Bruce Tuck

They have considered the city slicker beyond just the menu. The kitchen is inside the dining room, or vice versa, if you will.

Not only is there seating running along the kitchen, but there is an enormous gap in the counter where one would usually bump into a “staff only” sign.

The large gap between the counters encourages flow between the kitchen and dining area. Photo: Tristan du Plessis

“People have short attention spans, little time and have been exposed to celebrity chefs on TV and cooking shows. Chefs are almost like rock stars now and have been thrust into the spotlight. We wanted to open a restaurant which does not say here is the restaurant, there’s a wall and a kitchen.

“The guests sitting in the restaurant can actually feel like they are in the kitchen even if they aren’t at the counter. You can see straight in and can walk straight in. This is what we wanted – a real interaction where guests feel free to come into the kitchen, onto the pass and ask you what that is on the plate,” explains Tempelhoff.

The previous night, a couple travelling from Saudi Arabia had stood next to him and asked him if they could watch. He heartily agreed and explained to them what he was doing as he went.

“I’ve always had walls between myself and the guests. This is the first time in my career that I’ve broken down the barrier.”

The chef’s table is a counter which runs along one side of the kitchen so that guests can watch the chefs up close. Photo: Tristan du Plessis

Guests sitting in the mezzanine can look down into the kitchen and watch the chefs in action. Photo: Bruce Tuck

For his team, it has also been a big change.

“Everything you do all night is on show. We have to be very mindful of the guests and keep the noise level down. It’s part of the atmosphere, but we don’t want people to be Gordon Ramsay-ing across the kitchen. But the kitchen sounds are part of the atmosphere and people come for the show and the theatre,” says Moss.

Apart from feeling more connected to the guests, they are also experiencing the kitchen itself in a new way.

“We are lucky to be prepping and working all day in a place that isn’t in a little hole somewhere. I’ve worked in some kitchens in the UK where you are underground with no windows. You arrive when it’s dark in the morning, you spend the whole day there and then you come back up and it’s dark again,” recounts Moss.

Ashley Moss (centre) and Peter Tempelhoff (to the left) with the FYN kitchen crew. Photo: Bruce Tuck

Another barrier that has been broken down is between the kitchen and the waiting staff.

“It has also made us feel like one team that is working in one space. There’s always been that tension between the front of house and the kitchen about who does the work. Now there’s none of that and everyone can see that everyone works hard. It’s been good for us,” says Moss.

Tempelhoff can definitely see a FYN popping up anywhere around the world.

“It’s a restaurant which has a concept which is almost formulaic. You can take the concept and do it anywhere because it’s quite unique. You get all these little tastes in four little starters on a tray, and then a more substantial main course that you can relate to and bits and pieces in between. We could pick it up and put it in another city. Wouldn’t that be a nice plan?”

In the hours before the start of service you’ll hear the soft hum of kitchen chatter, the tinkle of crockery and cutlery and the occasional chuckle. The glass casing of the restaurant will gleam as the sun sets.

Every detail at FYN has a purpose – from the spekboom bonsais to the sizing of cutlery and crockery to fit together absolutely perfectly. Photo: Bruce Tuck

“I didn’t realise how caught up in paperwork and admin I really was until I started cooking again and pulling the pans out, seasoning the fish and chopping and slicing. I missed it. I actually feel younger. Honestly. I’m working way harder, but I feel like I have a new lease on life,” Tempelhoff says.

“So, what does it feel like? It feels damn invigorating.” DM