Chef Michelle Theron wanted to show me – and consequently you – what she’s doing at Geuwels restaurant now that she has taken over the kitchens at Vergenoegd Löw. So I’m your proxy, on a breathless summer’s day a seagull flight away from False Bay.
This estate is a bit of a maverick, so I feel at home here. It’s sort of out on a limb, not in Stellenbosch itself, in fact closer to Macassar. And the wild, choppy seas of False Bay. As you approach from the Stellies side, you may imagine you’ve gone too far and need to turn back. You seem to be approaching coastal settlements.
Yet here, as you turn in, up a drive and left into a large parking lot, suddenly you’re in familiar winelands territory. Whitewashed centuries-old buildings, vineyards that are intentionally wilded, and tourists everywhere. It’s a hot summer’s day and I’m here for a walk-through of the food Chef Michelle is doing now that she has reopened Geuwels after a big renovation.
The plan was one thing, what transpired was another. I wasn’t planning on lunch, rather a chat with the chef and some tastes of what’s on the menu. I would have been happy to loiter in the kitchen with nibbles of this and that – but this hope was quickly dispelled.
Strolling past a wide open doorway, I heard my name called. It was an anteroom to the kitchen, essentially the pass, where Michelle was plating up from the other side of the broad, airy hatch and service staff on my side were lining up to take plates out to Americans fanning their foreheads at tables outside.
She is a kind and humble person, and slightly breathlessly welcomed me warmly while apologising. Things were properly hectic, and had been since mid-December when Geuwels reopened for business. Only mid-December. If I didn’t mind, could they show me to a table next door and she’d join me as soon as she could?
To have insisted on hanging around at the pass would have been rude, so I followed food and beverage manager Belinda Barwise through one cool room – at the end of which hunks of meat were ageing in a fridge that is also a part of the decor – to the main dining room, both rooms as cool as a lounge lizard sipping a dry Martini.
And it’s smart, in the coolest way. Cool as in you feel you’ve slowed down even as you step inside, and are glad you declined the offer of a table outside.
I chose a table for one set apart from the rest, as I like to keep to myself as far as possible in a restaurant. Often, I dine alone, as for me this is a job of work, and I need to pay attention, take notes, and soak everything up, from the decor and ambient mood to – of course – the food. I sometimes opt to leave it to the chef to decide what they want me to eat. They know their menu best, and I’m there to find out. I find that deferring to the chef gives me insights into what they think best shows off what they do.
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Photos: All photos taken by Tony Jackman.