EXPECT foodie heaven. Liam Tomlinson’s new venture is a contemporary combo of focused food, culinary items you’ve been searching for and street cred.
The Dublin-born, accolade-heaped chef, who cut his culinary teeth in kitchens at 14 and made his name in his restaurant Banc in Sydney (which earned him a 3 Hats award plus two Restaurant of the Year awards) came to Cape Town to set up a culinary consultancy in 2004. His latest venture sees him in his element, back behind restaurant stoves.
Now that restaurateurs have realised that, the south-easter notwithstanding, Cape Town does boast balmy days, Liam has embraced the city-centre trend to have tables on the pavement, relocating and expanding his Chef’s Warehouse to the beautiful Georgian building at the Bree Street corner of Heritage Square which previously housed Caveau.
With the move, his cookery school has been put on the back burner, allowing focus on the new additions: a casual, canteen-style eaterie and Street Food.
This food-on-the-go expansion, operating out of the old Caveau wine cellar adjacent to the canteen, will specialise in take-away Asian and Middle East-inspired dishes.
The small indoor-outdoor “canteen”, packed for lunch and tapas dinner, has a relaxed ambience. You share long tables decorated and choose from an inviting menu that changes daily.
Take your time – to rush would be a crime. Service is informed: follow advice and order the speciality of the house (tapas for two). Then sit back and watch the little copper pots arrive, each more appetising than the last.
Match the contents to the winelist, which offers some lesser-known labels by the glass.
Dishes range from deli items like potted shrimp to rillettes and specialities of the day, whether rice balls, fish or leg. On the day we lunched, the litany of delights included crispy mushroom arancini, beef rump with braised oxtail, and seared tuna with soba noodles and wasabi mayo, followed by lemon posset with raspberries, and Bailey’s coffee parfait with praline and sabayon.
Though purist Liam’s personal view is that the best way to eat oysters is freshly shucked with a squeeze of lemon, and that an asparagus is perfect with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt, he realises patrons expect a little more when eating out.
Each creation is a flavour symphony, never confused by too abundant an ingredient mix.
Believing that great food begins with great ingredients, he deals only with suppliers sharing this view. From here he looks to enhance and balance the flavours, taking away, rather than adding. And although his book Season to Taste warns home cooks to taste first before seasoning, he’s no despot. Coarse salt and black pepper are on tables.
And it remains the first choice destination for kitchen equipment is unchanged. The culinary shop is still part of the package, the shelves crammed with covetable appliances and utensils, plus one of the largest cookbook collections in the country.
l Deli items from R60; specialities of the day R110; generous tapas for two R240; desserts from R40.