FINE-dining chefs who you would expect to find plating a five-course feast are diversifying and innovating, bringing a new wave of more casual offerings to the contemporary dining scene.
It is no secret that innovation in food and beverage is now more important than ever. Businesses, including restaurants, have suffered across the world.
In spite of that, chefs have marched forward, armed with culinary excitement, to win back customers. We’re seeing a growing trend towards diversification, what we might call fine-casual; less formal offerings that are more about everyday dining than special celebrations, but with the level of quality, ingredient, and attention to detail you would expect from fine dining.
Two fine-dining chefs Peter Tempelhoff and Michael Broughton speak about how they are responding to the challenges of last year, and how they are bringing fresh, new, and informal offerings into the dining space.
Peter Tempelhoff
Stickman by Fyn puts the spotlight on authentic Japanese yakitori and ramen, a concept that Tempelhoff has been developing for more than a year.
Tempelhoff and Ashley Moss, his executive chef and business partner, had been about to open their first Stickman Izakaya restaurant in Cape Town, serving this typical Japanese chicken on a stick – street food – when Covid-19 struck.
Tempelhoff says they were 90% ready to launch – food photographs were taken, hats and paraphernalia approved, shipments of sake organised…
Although their plans ground to a halt, they didn’t want to let it fizzle and die. Instead, they spotted an opportunity to do something casual for the home diner.
“With more people working from home and less budget for business lunches, Fyn has seen a big dip in lunch custom. There is a different demand for higher quality home- dining experiences. We have a lot of our regulars ordering – people who have been following Fyn and used to order Fyn at home when we were doing those deliveries – they want a different experience. This high-quality Japanese street food offering is appealing to them, not too fancy, but done really well,” says Tempelhoff.
“We’ve done a lot of research. Even something as simple as ramen noodles, you wouldn’t believe how complex it is in terms of the science behind it, the broths, the techniques, the variety of different broths and noodles you can make. We’re exploring a whole new interesting world.
“The team makes everything they can in-house, including miso, importing soy sauces and kombus from Japan, as well as the best binchotan charcoal for the grill to achieve the high temperatures required. We’ve sourced the best chickens in the country and, in a few weeks, we’re getting rare-breed poulet noir which is being raised for us. I know it sounds like meat on a stick, like a sosatie, but there is so much more to it.”
Michael Broughton
Previously head chef at award-winning Terroir restaurant where he worked for 16 years, Broughton’s career is exploring new paths as a result of Terroir’s closure in the first few months of lockdown.
Working with Tom Breytenbach, of Brenaissance Wine and Stud, Broughton is managing every detail of food and operations for four new restaurant spaces on Plein Street in Stellenbosch. The first to open is Cucina, an everyday Italian-inspired restaurant aimed at locals. The next will be The Stud Burger for eat-in and takeaways, then Bosch, a wine bar with decent-sized sharing plates, and finally Ember, a top-end grill and meat experience.
Broughton says he and Tom want to make good food more accessible.
“We’re putting in the same attention to detail as in fine dining, but focusing on simple things that are very well done. This might be a chicken salad with a spin, marinated to perfect tenderness, or a fillet steak with green pepper sauce and fries.
“We have a distinct advantage in that we are using beef from the Brenaissance cattle farms in the North West where the cows eat seven types of grass and that’s it, moving from pasture to pasture, rotating the fields. Every calf is born on that land and traced genetically through the generations. It's Boron beef, it really is something to eat. You pick up the flavour of the grazing in the taste of the meat, just as you do with proper Karoo lamb,” he says.
“After so many years in the fine-dining department, it’s a change to asking: What have I learnt? How can I apply this? How can I think differently in putting good flavour on the plate?
“Fine dining is an expensive way to present food. I loved it but my time in the sun of fine dining is over and I’m really enjoying what I’m doing now. I’m not using so much of my brawn behind the stove. I’m using what I’ve learnt over the last 25 years and putting it together in a different package.”
Drinks to match?
Tempelhoff says drinks are part of the experience – that his original concept saw Japanese whiskies, sake and a specially brewed beer on the drinks menu, but soft drinks are important too.
“The sparkling San Pellegrino drinks – the lemon, orange, grapefruit and the lemon ice tea – we find these pair fantastically with the food. They have just the acidity you need for the slight fattiness on the chicken skin, and the Iberico pork, the sticky sauce, they work well with it.”