THE SHOWROOM, JAN. 2008

It's coming up for holidays now and we'll be off to Franschhoek in January. I'm looking forward to it and I'm already booking restaurants.


Last January, we had dinner at The Showroom in Greenpoint, Cape Town. I must confess that I had looked forward with huge anticipation to dinner at the Showroom. Bruce Robertson's reputation and several restaurant accolades had followed the opening of this glamorous eating spot. Sadly this restaurant has also closed it's doors in the last year, having fallen prey to the recession.


Here are my recollections of that dinner in Jan 2008 with my friends Nicky and Fran and my partner, Richard.

I am a self-confessed fan of Bruce Robertson and dinner at his restaurant was one night of our holiday which I was eagerly anticipating.

Writing this account now, I can remember little detail of the menu or the dishes we sampled on the night. I do remember that I started with a chicken liver parfait with home-made nut butter and apple tarte tatin which I thought was one of the best I've ever had. I had a moment of trepidation about the 'nut' butter but the combination with the parfait was superb. Richard had a salad starter with asparagus dressed with truffle oil which sadly overwhelmed the other flavours and all I can remember was the truffle. Nicky and Fran's dishes looked superb but, saldly, I cannot remember what they were - despite having sampled them both!

For mains, diners are tasked with selecting their own sauce to accompany their chosen dish from a large-ish selection. Wait-staff, who are very well informed, are on hand to assist with the pairing process. This is part of the interactive dining process (together with having the working kitchen fully on show to patrons). Fuddy-duddy that I am, I would have preferred to have Chef Robertson himself select the sauce to accompany my pork dish. I chose an Asian sauce which featured soy and 5 spice which went very well with my braised pork belly. The latter being the hot new item on menus in the Cape. I thoroughly enjoyed my dish but Richard was less successful with his Guinea Fowl with sauce Perigord. He thought the stock base which had been used was meat-based and said that he couldn't taste much of the 'fowl. Others at the table seemed to like their choices but there were no raves.

Dessert can often be the highlight of an evening. The Showroom pulls out all the stops with presentation especially with their 'Snakes and Ladders'. Unfortunately, I found that other than presentation, they were quite ordinary.

The winelist was superb, featuring some of the best the Cape has to offer. We had 2 good bottles of wine and thoroughly enjoyed the evening out. The final verdict was that the the show, while quite a good performance, was never going to live up to the anticipation.

I wonder how Trevor Manuel, sitting on the upper level that night, enjoyed his dinner.