When FYN opened seven years ago, the restaurant had been put together on a shoestring budget, and there was little inkling it would become one of the defining dining destinations in the country.
It quickly established itself as one of Africa’s most acclaimed restaurants, garnering status on top 50 global restaurant lists and more. Last month, chef Peter Tempelhoff became the first South African chef to receive Three Knives at the Best Chef Awards, an accolade that positions him among the top chefs worldwide.
Together with culinary director chef Ashely Moss and beverage director Jennifer Hugé, Tempelhoff creates an experience deeply rooted in the Cape’s land and sea — an exploration of taste, texture and technique. Where other fine dining restaurants often use a French approach and techniques, Tempelhoff uses local ingredients and translates them with the ethos of Japanese cuisine, with its multi-course tasting menu that blends precision and restraint with bold local flavours.
Perched on the fifth floor of a building in Cape Town’s CBD on Parliament Street, FYN’s floor-to-ceiling windows frame sweeping views of the city and Table Mountain.
Earlier this year, the restaurant underwent a thoughtful revamp. The dramatic ceiling installation — thousands of suspended discs — remains a focal point, while new tables and chairs enhance comfort and a wooden floor lends warmth. Even the chopsticks now tell a local story, handcrafted from SA wood, whereas previously these had been imported.
“When we opened, we did FYN for the same price as you could open a Wimpy,” says Tempelhoff. The restaurant’s success has since allowed them to reinvest and refine.
The restaurant still exudes a calm sophistication — all wood, stone, and soft metal tones — with the open kitchen adding energy and transparency. “Small incremental changes that make a big difference when compounded,” says Tempelhoff. “We redesigned the entrance to make it a bit more dramatic, improved the kitchen flow, made small changes to lighting, redesigned the chairs and tables, and even collaborated with audio and acoustics specialist Dino Moran to fine-tune the playlist.”
A recent dinner at FYN unfolded as The Experience Menu, a journey through earth, plant and sea — with ingredients both indigenous and intriguing. Over the past year, the team has focused particularly on local plants, many sourced from their indigenous garden at Beyond, their sister restaurant at Buitenverwachting. The garden now supplies both kitchens with rare local produce, allowing them to be harvested without impacting their natural habitats.
Among these are succulents like Sunrose, with its lemony tang, and a nutty root that can grow over a metre long with a taste like macadamia nuts.
“We love umami; we love the precision of Japanese techniques,” says Tempelhoff. “Instead of French or Italian, we’ll use noodles instead of pasta, and lighter sauces than the cream… We’re using locally inspired dashis and broths, having more raw fish dishes. We’re using sake, and we’re using soya sauce. But ultimately FYN will always be rooted in SA, and the Cape in particular.”
International visitors, he says, are captivated. “When journalists come out from overseas, they love it — and that uniqueness has really been recognised.”
The tasting menu celebrates what makes the Western Cape singular. The menu draws from SA biomes and biospheres and land and sea plants. Think Cape game fish (tuna and yellowtail), sea plants (kelp, sea lettuce, wakame and nori), land plants (waterblommetjies, sunrose and dune spinach) and Cape Wagyu, a cross between African black cattle and Japanese wagyu, served with sauteed mushrooms and rooibos.
Each course is delicate yet layered, brimming with creativity — from the plateware and presentation to the interplay of colour and form. Service is precise but never intrusive.
Playfulness finds its way into the drinks, too. The non-alcoholic cocktails are inventive — a vibrant kiwi and green tea refresher and a house-made cola that tastes like Haribo sweets, complete with a cola gummy on the side.
Dessert keeps the sense of fun alive: rice pudding made with Ishikawa rice, coconut and meringue, topped with ginger and puffed rice; a coconut-citrus sorbet with chocolate tuile for crunch; and a zingy finger lime and pineapple taffy inspired by Tempelhoff’s Durban roots, with chilli and shichimi spice adding a zestful bite.
Fermentation plays a central role — the team even brews their own kombuchas and water kefirs (along with other infusions and tinctures) at the Buitenverwachting farm. And pescetarian, vegetarian and vegan tasting menus are also available.
As for the wine, Hugé, a French-South African sommelier who co-founded FYN and previously ran La Colombe for almost 18 years, curates pairings. The list is a tour of the Cape, from Klein Constantia and Sadie Family Wines from the Swartland to Brookdale in Paarl, Delheim from Stellenbosch and Newton Johnson in Hemel-En-Aarde in the mix.
Meanwhile, Tempelhoff and his team are enjoying the accolades. But as he says “it just means we’ve got to work harder… There are expectations, and we don’t want to disappoint. It’s about constantly pushing to do the best we can and offer the best possible experience to our guests.”
