Ten years on, Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia remains one of Cape Town’s culinary heavyweights. On a spectacular spot above Constantia Nek, the restaurant commands panoramic views of the valley through a glass-walled dining room that feels both elevated and unpretentious — a tone set largely by head chef Ivor Jones, who’s spent a decade here doing exactly what he set out to do: cook food he believes in.
The space has an easy elegance to it. With attentive service, the open kitchen hums quietly on one side of the room, and on warmer days the terrace draws those who’d rather eat with the mountain at their back. Tables, however, are still hard to come by. The loyal regulars book weeks ahead; visitors from overseas who have culinary experiences on their agenda arrive with it circled on their lists.
Jones is something of an outlier among his peers. While many chefs of his standing have expanded into multi-restaurant portfolios, he has stayed committed solely to Beau. It remains his singular force — a deliberate choice. “As soon as chefs start spreading themselves across three, four, five restaurants, I don’t believe the quality is as good as the first one,” he says. “It dilutes the brand.”
His silent partner, Liam Tomlin, operates differently — building a portfolio of restaurants, each led by a chef who owns their domain — but at Beau, the creative authority is Jones’, and it’s been consistent and highly awarded.
That consistency is also a team story. His head chef Chad Graham, who previously worked with Jones at The Test Kitchen (the highly lauded restaurant by chef Luke Dale-Roberts), has worked with him for eight years.
Of course, there’s been a transfer of knowledge and skill. Kitchen graduates have gone on to run their own restaurants in Cape Town, the UK and Austria. “I’m a big believer in hiring the right people and then getting out of their way,” Jones says. What he looks for first isn’t technical skill — it’s enthusiasm. “The rest can be taught. When someone eats something, how do they react? Do they get excited? You can have a very skilled chef who just doesn’t show it.”
The food at Beau Constantia is a blend of tasting menu formality and the looseness of sharing plates — but its direction has sharpened over the years. Southeast Asia has become an increasingly dominant influence, drawn from Jones’ habit of travelling not only to dine, but to understand. He recently spent three weeks in Chiang Mai studying under one of Thailand’s most respected chefs and seeking out an extraordinary balance of flavours, often in small little spaces.
That kind of encounter — bold, unglamorous, technically precise — is what drives him. “We’ve explored all the simpler stuff and now we’re really digging deeper into flavour, into regions we don’t fully understand yet. That’s why I travel.”
The creative process, he’s careful to point out, isn’t a solo act. “It’s not ‘everything I say goes’. My team pitches ideas, we taste together, we discuss.” Certain dishes have become signatures over the years — raw fish preparations and, unexpectedly, the risotto. “A lot of people come specifically for a good risotto. Beau has become synonymous with that.”
Jones has watched Cape Town mature into a serious global food destination and is largely proud of what the city has become — though not uncritically. He worries about oversaturation, about lean winters when tourism evaporates, and most pointedly, about pricing. “I think a lot of high-end restaurants are completely overpricing themselves”.
He’s considering opening a second, more casual space in the southern suburbs — something aimed squarely at locals, at the year-round clientele that actually sustains a restaurant through the quiet months. It would be his only venture beyond Chefs Warehouse.
Among his personal highlights of the past decade was an invitation to cook at Obsession last year, the prestigious 28-night food festival in Manchester where a different world-class chef headlines each evening. He’s also close to completing a book — not a recipe collection but something closer to a manifesto: a coffee-table lookbook filled with illustration, photography and essays on creativity, collaboration and what it means to run a kitchen. “I didn’t want to create a standard recipe book. I wanted to create something I could give back to the industry, something about the creative process itself.”
Jones takes particular pride in what the kitchen has produced in its people. As he says: you become more than just someone who cooks in a kitchen, you become a mentor.
A recent lunch showed why the restaurant is on several must-visit lists. From the coal-fired bread and butter to the main courses of roasted line fish with herbs, and Thai chicken with pandan stick rice and coconut naam pla, it was so enjoyed at the table that it prompted a flurry of requests for a space from him dedicated to Asian food.
The classics have always remained on the menu: fresh oysters, risotto (ranging from carrots with goat’s cheese mousse, orange zest and pine nuts, to roasted corn risotto with fermented black garlic and popped sorghum) and Jones’ signature dessert, wild honey and lavender cream.
What has changed over the decade, he says, is the shift from fierce competition among restaurants to something that feels more like community. “Back in the day, the restaurants were all trying to outcook each other — and I think that competitive energy is actually why Cape Town is where it is today. But recently there’s more of an all-encompassing community feel. Everyone’s supporting each other.”
The winter set menu for lunch is available from Monday to Friday until the end of September, priced at R895 a person, and can be supplemented with a wine pairing for R700. Dinner’s six-course menu is served Monday to Saturday evenings, with a Sunday lunch available. Pricing is R1,500 a person, with the option of a wine pairing at R900 a person.
chefswarehouse.co.za/beau-constantia
Wanted
