A bright young talent blooms at the foot of Helshoogte

Have you been here before, the uniformed man at the gate wanted to know?

Yes, said I.

Ah, then you remember where the parking is?

Noooo...

Oh? When last were you here?

The seventies.

Sjoe!

Actually it was probably somewhere in the Eighties, when Boschendal restaurant was famed for its huge buffet of traditional Cape dishes. Or maybe I came here in the Nineties. On second thoughts, I must have done.

But no, I’m not going to bang on about how none of that old fare is available here any more, even if somebody, somewhere, needs to take up that baton. But not here: I like what’s happening here too much to hanker for the old days. We’ve all moved on.

When something this good is happening on one of the finest old estates at the Cape, it’s worth celebrating for what it is, while respecting what once was. And what is happening is Arum. And chef and partner Travis Finch. It’s the newest eatery in the FYN Group.

Group supremo Peter Tempelhoff drove out to Boschendal at the foot of the Helshoogte pass to introduce your food editor to Travis Finch, whom he had enticed back to South Africa to become a partner at Arum, after first working with him when he was a trainee at the Greenhouse at the Cellars-Hohenort back in the day. Peter says Finch has truly grabbed the bull by the horns to make Arum his own, as it were (while being a partner alongside Tempelhoff, Jennifer Hugé and Paul Bruce-Brand).

At the Boschendal of the mid 2020s, you’re welcome to ignore Cape punctuality (arrive late) or even common courtesy (arrive on time) and instead arrive far too early, to tour the restaurant space (which is intact yet unrecognisable to those who knew the venerable Boschendal restaurant) and the massive kitchen garden. Even the mushroom farm if you have time for it.

With remarkable dexterity, the interior spaces have been furbished in great style – I’d say with aplomb – yet without detracting anything from the ancient simplicity. Peter took me around the interior and onto the stoep facing the kitchen garden, pointing out that every installation was placed, rather than built in, so that one day everything can be lifted up and taken out. You’d never think so to look at it all, although I wouldn’t want to be one of the poor blokes carrying it all.

Peter waxed enthusiastic about the designs that Mr Design came up with, in a project steered by chef Travis. As you enter, look right and your mind darts back in time by nearly 200 years. Is this a Voortrekker ox wagon on a massive scale? But it’s actually modelled on a grow tunnel, and is swathed in off-white woven mohair. Down the middle is a long table that can be earmarked for a celebration. Or wine tasting. The tunnel is meant to give the room a bit of a vineyard feel, which it does, subtly. (Luckily they didn’t drape the mohair cage with the horror of faux grapevine. That would have probably fitted the old buffet space better.)

To the left is the moody, serious heart of Arum: a dark space overlooked by a pair of earthy artworks in corduroy geometrics that suggest an autumnal patchwork farm. Beyond, towards the animal-themed bar lounge (also used for wine tasting), you walk through the “fermentation library” or preservation room. Large jars contain all manner of fruit, vegetables and herbs lingering like creepy science lab exhibits. Freeze-dried strawberries. Kimchi variants. Salted lemons. Tamarind vinegar. Lemongrass, ginger and jalapeño for hot sauces.

Hunks of Duroc pork and Angus beef linger in purpose-built temperature-controlled dry-ageing cabinets. Duroc pork is bred on the farm and immortalised in a magnificent oil painting by Driaan Claassen in the animal-themed bar lounge, alongside another of a Bonsmara cow. Claassen’s brain-inspired sculptures are encased nearby, strange encapsulations of a thought, a hope or a dream, or whatever was passing through the mind when an MRI captured it. Extraordinary.

The bar is solid and off-white, a bone-like homage to animal and meat, as if exposing the bone to which the meat you are eating once clung. A banquette is skirted in pleated cowhide, suggesting butchers’ aprons. Sheep-skin throws are slung slinkily over chairs.

Across from the entrance space is a garden room or conservatory, light and airy and with tables and chairs repurposed from FYN when it had its own refurbishment. Curtains are dyed in onion and tea. The view is breathtaking, past the kitchen garden towards the mushroom forest and the ring of mountains beyond.

Later, chef Travis walks me through the garden. Familiar vegetables and fruit grow near exotics, while the mushroom forest has trees inoculated with spores. There’s shiitake, king oyster, enoki and eryngii alongside local varieties. There are expectations of “abundant flushes” of fungi as September and the spring approaches, like maiden aunts reaching for the sal volatile when the sun comes out.

The produce of this farming toil makes its way to FYN and beyond too. A van runs between the farm and restaurants three or four times a week, and any surplus fruit and veg is split between the restaurants. Mushrooms and olives are processed on site; olive oil pressed, some olives cured, smoked or turned into tapenade or oil.

I had thought of Arum (this was my first visit) as a sort of recent afterthought for the FYN Group. Now I wonder if it isn’t its heartbeat. I’ll say this: Chef Travis Finch sure is one to watch, because his hand is all over this.

As is Tempelhoff’s, of course. Even the loos are special. Boschendal was known for its oddly impressive rest rooms. Arum honours this peculiar tradition by paying great attention to the decor of the gents and women’s facilities which flank a beautiful space where a huge sundial picks up the sun at certain times of day from the glorious view beyond the large picture window. The marble basins are eye-popping.

Tempelhoff even had the music curated. Dino Moran, a pioneer of African house and techno, created a soundscape of music from Central and West Africa with Hispanic undertones.

The music disappears behind us as Peter ushers me into the kitchen, an inner sanctum we mere mortal diners do not normally enter. It’s surprisingly small, but it turns out this is only the pass. Down some stairs, there are several other rooms: sections for the preparation of meat, vegetables, starters, a pastry station, and staff facilities.

But I stop Peter on the stairs, because the teenage boy in me is grinning at the sign on the wall above. I ask him for a picture and he hesitates only for a second before smiling cheekily and pointing up to the sign: TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD!

Only the crew will see it, their daily (many times a day) reminder of the core rule of cooking well. Home cooks need to know it too, though I don’t need a sign in my kitchen. (I taste too often and risk there not being enough to serve.)

How to define one man’s cuisine? It’s informed by his own life, his palate, and in this case his travels. Travis Finch – my mind keeps slipping to Atticus, from my favourite novel To Kill a Mockingbird – travelled far and wide, until Peter Tempelhoff persuaded him to come back in 2025.

Travis – “Trav” – has soft spots for the cuisines, ingredients and cooking techniques of Southeast Asia, Mexico, Peru and Argentina, and that’s quite a mix. No wonder his food is so bright and cheerful.

Under his wooden spoon, the flaming fire of Argentina and Peru melds with the (chilli-) fire of Mexico and the wild condiments of Southeast Asia to which are added ingredients nurtured and grown under the hazy Cape sun, and what all that adds up to is what you find on your plate.

Lively, citrusy, hot, smooth and spiky flavours abound – I’m in the kitchen and dishes are coming past me at a rapid pace with little spoons offered to me to taste this and that (no, not from the plates going out to diners!) and everything pops with exciting tastes and gorgeous textures.

His strongest influences are clearly South American and Southeast Asian, but he’s fashioned a style of his own, and Tempelhoff must have been expecting something like this when he invited him to launch Arum as a partner, along with the wonderful madame Jennifer Hugé. Tempelhoff is no fool, and his hunches are to be trusted. And yet, he manages to remain a grounded, humble soul.

It’s strange to be in the kitchen when all the plates are being whisked past me to go out and into the restaurant, but there’s an intrigue and an excitement in being at the coalface. It allows me insights I would not otherwise have, and so you will be finding more of these kitchen visits as we go along.

I gleaned this from this kitchen visit: the space where the legendary Boschendal restaurant was, famed for its traditional buffet, is now a gorgeously styled modern restaurant that will rise straight to the top league. And chef Travis Finch is set to become one of the most lauded chefs in the region. DM

Tony Jackman was invited by Peter Tempelhoff to be a guest in Travis Finch’s kitchen during a lunch service.