Modern ode to fine dining in Franschhoek

True or not, it’s a lovely legend: millennia before the Michelin Guide and its star ratings, the philosopher Archestratus wrote long-form poetry about where 4th-century BC Greeks could dine in fine style in the ancient Mediterranean world. Horizons are wider now, and he may look, too, to a hillside restaurant in Franschhoek named in his honour as the father of food critics.

Arkeste has undergone a few recent changes. Head chef Ashwin Johannes has been in charge of the kitchen for about six months, although he’s been with the restaurant for many years and has been mentored by two of SAs culinary legends, Richard Carstens and Rueben Riffel. The menu has been “tweaked just a bit,” he says, although he’s primed to experiment and add his own signatures now that the busy holiday and tourist season is easing.

Nestled in a shady canopy at the entrance to the Chamonix wine farm and adjoining its tasting room, and with a riverine bank within touching distance, the restaurant has the carefree ambience of a tree house. Lightwood furniture, whitewashed Cape Cod-style interior cladding, and gentle, barely audible music — the chansons of Edith Piaf, I think — add to the sense of time standing serenely still.

The wine list is interesting, with appealing selections from most Cape wine regions. But there’s a logical skew towards Franschhoek producers, and we settle on glasses of the 2022 viognier from Lynx, known for its traditional winemaking methods, and Chamonix’s 2023 sauvignon blanc and 2022 oaked chardonnay.

The amuse bouche is a beautiful little spectacle — a seafood morsel as art. It’s amplified in one of the starter specials, simply but mysteriously called Franco-Japanese, described by Arkeste’s manager and maître d’ Anneline Mentoor Jaar as a unique interpretation of five different seafoods accompanied by sushi rice. I’m hooked.

Mentoor Jaar goes into explanatory detail when it is served. The elegant, separately presented components are an MCC-poached oyster, calamari with grapefruit, a steamed mussel with edamame beans, diced prawn with yuzu in a pickled onion shell, sushi rice with nori and lemon dressing, and hake with buckwheat and crispy kale. The flavours meld and merge harmoniously, but each seafood ingredient retains its distinctness.

I’m surprised my wife doesn’t select another of the starter specials, baked Alaska featuring salmon ice cream and encased with savoury meringue. Instead she chooses the linefish tempura with Cape Malay dressing and so many accoutrements that the description overlaps into two lines on the menu. It’s less visually dramatic than mine — more Monet than Matisse — but her silence is a giveaway of immersive enjoyment.   

“These chefs are crazy,” she says when a palate cleanser arrives after we’ve cleaned our plates. “Only obsessed cooks would spend time creating this,” she clarifies, referring to the cucumber sorbet with wasabi syrup and mint – sweet and fragrant, tickling the taste buds for the next course. 

Johannes suggests his current favourite dish — the red-wine glazed springbok with pomme Anna and blueberries — but we opt for a 12-hour comparison: lamb shoulder versus pork belly. My lamb is a main course special, served on a bed of white polenta, with a rich ragout sauce and accompanied by roasted tomatoes and olives, mangetout and microgreens. The lamb itself is soft, satiny perfection. The oak in the Chamonix chardonnay makes it robust and viscous enough to pair brilliantly.

Heather’s 12-hour crisp pork belly with sesame, peanuts, green chilli, potato croquette and a Rozendale vinegar gastrique split with coriander oil draws momentary oohs and aahs. Then she’s silent again. Ten blissful minutes later we declare the battle of the slow-cooking oven a tie.

Waitstaff expertly gauge the pauses between courses, and we’re left to finish the wine before being gently alerted to options such as soft chocolate ganache tart with hazelnut crust and orange buchu ice cream, or vanilla creme with strawberry MCC sorbet, pink peppercorns and chocolate berry meringue. 

Somehow, although we both inch towards the Gorgonzola ice cream with walnuts, plums and honeycomb, dessert seems an unnecessary embellishment. Instead, we chat to Mentoor Jaar about Arkeste’s struggles through the travails of Covid-19 and then the bizarre floods of Spring 2023, which saw water cascading through the restaurant, forcing it to close for major repairs.

Thankfully, Arkeste has been fully restored and rejuvenated, and is back to serving world-class food. British and German visitors at nearby tables, heads bobbing in prandial appreciation, impliedly concur.

The spirit of Archestratus would undoubtedly include this Franschhoek gem in his updated, poetic culinary guide.

• Arkeste, Chamonix Wine Farm, 40 Uitkyk Street, Franschhoek, Tel: 021 876 8415