Genot - Take a drive

We took a trip out to Franschoek to enjoy a chilled Sunday lunch at Genot, the sister restaurant of the highly-rated Overture at Hidden Valley. Positioned in the beautiful surroundings of the Klein Genot Wine farm, the restaurant offers stunning views of the surrounding winelands, a feature wall made up of chopped timber, striking wallpaper and glamourous chandeliers. It is a brilliant combination of chic with rustic touches and the end result is an awesome venue. The kitchen is modern and open plan allowing guests to watch the action as dishes are created.

Let's just rewind a bit to our arrival though. Absolutely pouring with rain, we were forced to sprint 50m (about 5 and a half seconds for me...) and were left drenched as we entered the place. What makes good restaurants brilliant restaurants is the attention to detail and I feel they have missed an opportunity here to have staff welcoming guests with umbrellas.

On to the reason we were there. The menu seemed to involve a lot of Asian influences, mixed with true South African dishes. Things like Springbok bobotie sit happily alongside braised pork-neck with ginger and carrot salad. Our table's starters included steamed mussels with cumin, tomato and basil (Brilliant. Simple, clean flavours), an incredible sweet potato gnocchi with pecorino foam and a coconut-milk soup with prawns and chicken. For mains, I had the pork-neck which was outstanding. Others went for the fillet with a roasted tomato bearnaise sauce, a lamb and waterblommetjie bredie and the grilled sirloin with field mushrooms. All of them were perfect. To finish things off, there was a warm brandy pudding and a vanilla-pod creme brulee with roasted quince and an almond koeksister. The flavours in both desserts were perfectly balanced and both were a great end to the meal.

The wine (Klein Genot Shiraz) flowed pretty steadily and was one of the better wines I've had for a while. In fact, it was so good we bought a couple of cases from the wine cellar downstairs!

This place is worth the drive. It is great value-for-money and with Mark Radnay (formerly of Yum fame) at the helm, I expect to hear lots more from it in the future.

Get hold of them on (021) 876-2738

Cheers,

Jamie Who