A polished, deeply local menu anchors Geuwels’ reopening

Chef Michelle Theron wanted to show me – and consequently you – what she’s doing at Geuwels restaurant now that she has taken over the kitchens at Vergenoegd Löw. So I’m your proxy, on a breathless summer’s day a seagull flight away from False Bay.

This estate is a bit of a maverick, so I feel at home here. It’s sort of out on a limb, not in Stellenbosch itself, in fact closer to Macassar. And the wild, choppy seas of False Bay. As you approach from the Stellies side, you may imagine you’ve gone too far and need to turn back. You seem to be approaching coastal settlements.

Yet here, as you turn in, up a drive and left into a large parking lot, suddenly you’re in familiar Winelands territory. Whitewashed centuries-old buildings, vineyards that are intentionally wilded, and tourists everywhere. It’s a hot summer’s day and I’m here for a walk-through of the food Chef Michelle is doing now that she has reopened Geuwels after a big renovation.

The plan was one thing, what transpired was another. I wasn’t planning on lunch, rather a chat with the chef and some tastes of what’s on the menu. I would have been happy to loiter in the kitchen with nibbles of this and that – but this hope was quickly dispelled.

Strolling past a wide open doorway, I heard my name called. It was an anteroom to the kitchen, essentially the pass, where Michelle was plating up from the other side of the broad, airy hatch and service staff on my side were lining up to take plates out to Americans fanning their foreheads at tables outside.

She is a kind and humble person, and slightly breathlessly welcomed me warmly while apologising. Things were properly hectic, and had been since mid-December when Geuwels reopened for business. Only mid-December. If I didn’t mind, could they show me to a table next door and she’d join me as soon as she could?

To have insisted on hanging around at the pass would have been rude, so I followed F&B Manager Belinda Barwise through one cool room – at the end of which hunks of meat were ageing in a fridge that is also a part of the decor – to the main dining room, both rooms as cool as a lounge lizard sipping a dry Martini.

And it’s smart, in the coolest way. Cool as in you feel you’ve slowed down even as you step inside, and are glad you declined the offer of a table outside.

I chose a table for one set apart from the rest, as I like to keep to myself as far as possible in a restaurant. Often, I dine alone, as for me this is a job of work, and I need to pay attention, take notes, and soak everything up, from the decor and ambient mood to – of course – the food. I sometimes opt to leave it to the chef to decide what they want me to eat. They know their menu best, and I’m there to find out. I find that deferring to the chef gives me insights into what they think best shows off what they do.

Having been seated at a table in the main dining room, rather than loiter in the wings and be a nuisance while kitchen staff try not to elbow me out of the way, I declined all wine but accepted mineral water – I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol during the day in any case, even if I’m not driving.

Asking to be left alone for 20 minutes or so, so that I could orientate and sniff around a bit, I took my phone camera on a bit of a stroll around the place. I loved the elegant booth seating, the giant woven cane basket-like shades above, and the abundance of dark wood from ceiling to floor to wall panelling. At the far end of the adjacent, smaller dining room, there’s a fridge where meat is aged. Meat is an important part of the Geuwels menu, not least because South Africans are known for their meaty palates, and this is a showcase for our local food and ways.

And this is a thing I’ve been noticing over the past year. At last – at long last – there is undeniable evidence that our chefs have woken up to the obvious truth that we ought to be serving our own cuisine to the world, our own ingredients, and cooking and presenting it in our own ways. This is how Cape Town will really, finally, make its mark on the culinary world.

For years now, we’ve watched, sometimes frowning in restrained puzzlement – or is that bewilderment? – as our fancy top restaurants have shown off every cuisine of the world in every dish they’ve served to our foreign visitors (who often are the only ones who could afford this end of our dining scene) and hardly a local ingredient or dish in sight.

Michelle Theron is known for her way with local foods and her honest insistence that we must cook what we know and do it in the very best way we’re capable of. And she is capable of turning out plates with all that honesty on display, garnished with a great deal of style and aplomb. And yet her food encases modesty as well, and this means that her personality is coming through from the sweaty kitchen into the dinIng room, right there on your plate.

So what’s on the plate? I had no idea until the food arrived.

To start with, a bread course. A small mosbolletjie (grape must buns redolent of aniseed) and roosterkoek with three butters (fynbos, citrus, and seaweed) and a trio of salts (plain, tallow, and citrus/herb). Tallow – sheep’s fat or in this case a butter whipped with it – is appearing everywhere on contemporary Cape menus. The butter was from San Gabriel homestead nearby.

The mosbolletjie and roosterkoek were lovely, though I am no fan of the latter. I find them chewy, this one far less so than is often the case. There was a crispy little leaf-patterned wafer too. And the tallow butter was joyfully sweetened by braised onion.

My “canapé” course (as the waitress described it) turned out to be roosterkoek again, with carrot escabeche (pickled, in other words) and steamed mussels. The juices of everything were soaked into the roosterkoek, rendering it soft and delightful. The mussels were effortlessly perfect. If roosterkoek was always this good I’d eat it every day.

My starter was carpaccio made with sirloin from the farm’s own Dexter cattle, dressed with an “old-school green bean salad” and Parmesan. If carpaccio is not a local tradition, it showed skilful use of quality meat sourced on-site with the “local” coming in the form of a simple traditional curried bean salad. The dressing brought mustard and caper to mind.

I’d been eyeing the main courses and, despite having left it to the chef as to what I would eat, when I spotted the “crumbed free range pork cutlet” I found myself desiring it greatly. But I kept my counsel and waited to see what Michelle had chosen for me. And there it was: the chef had read my mind (or palate) and sent it to me. On the plate were braised fennel and turnip and sweet white grapes, and the bold flavouring of Cape mountain sage.

The dessert she chose was magnificent: a parfait made of maas (the fermented milk product reminiscent of buttermilk), garnished with boerejongens (brandy-soaked raisins). Thank goodness I’m not close enough to eat it every day or my morning walks would be pointless.

There are many things on the menu that I found sorely tempting but let’s stick to what chef Michelle sent my way. If you dine at Geuwels and choose other dishes, let me know what you thought.

I asked for the bill, which request was courteously declined as I had not booked for lunch, but had arrived for an interview. Ultimately they accepted my payment.

After lunch, Michelle was finally able to retrieve herself from the kitchen for the chat I had hoped for earlier. But not before I had strolled back into the service sanctum and hovered while final orders were called and plated up.

I felt like a proper nuisance. Like a member of the audience who’d walked on stage and upset the natural flow of the performance.

As I hovered to one side of the stage action, Chef Michelle carefully finished a table’s plating while a line of servers stood at the ready, then stepped back.

“You can start walking guys.”

I slipped outside while they did their job, watching them walk at a swift pace to the waiting table.

After a stroll around the werf, I returned. From behind the hatch I heard: “Can I get a sweep of the floor please?”

Two minutes later, thinking she might finally be able to extricate herself, I peeked through the hatch to see Michelle sweeping the floor herself.

And, right then, a new table of orders came in.

A chef’s work – it never stops. DM

The writer paid the bill despite protestations.