The Dining Room, Franschhoek, Cape Town

1 Reviews on “The Dining Room, Franschhoek, Cape Town”

• Howard Shenker

  I’m sitting here in seat 17B on Kulula flight MN something or other back to Jhb and all I feel is… Disappointed! Devastated! And even angry!Our anniversary dinner at the Dining room last night was such a let down. I thought long and hard about this dinner, as we’ve eaten at La Petit Colombe, Protégé & Marigold and I honestly thought that the best food, in the heart of the Leeu Estates, would be in the Dining Room of the hotel itself. We received a very warm welcome and a wonderful glass of bubbly to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Thank you.Our bread course was superb, delicious olive and cheese bread sticks, lovely crispy ciabatta and interesting butters, although somehow a smoked haddock and a marmalade butter would have been more appropriate for breakfast.The first courses arrived and the soup was immediately declared delicious and tasty. There was something charming about the underdone pulses that created a nice contrast of textures, although now I’m not so sure whether that was actually intended or they were actually just underdone pulses. The snoek bitterballen left a lot to be desired. The overwhelming taste of uncooked flower overrode the smoked snoek, the barely crunchy exterior just holding the balls together. It was crying out for a tasty dipping sauce….but alas.. We let it ride and eagerly awaited our boef bourguignon. If ever there was a badly plated plate of food this was it, the sauce sloppily splattered all over the plate. Once again, we have eaten beef bourguignon all over the world, in rustic restaurants in the French countryside to Posh French bistros in New York City. If you’re going to serve such a classic dish, you better make it well and not serve up the just about edible beef stew that you did, but omg, the mash potatoes was where it really went wrong! Culinary criminality of the highest order… My guess, and it is a fairly educated guess, was that they were whizzed up in a food processor about a week ago and portioned off into plastic bags for reheating. The gooey lumps of mash were still shaped like the bags and had a hard crust around them. Not even copious amounts of butter could rescue those.Chef did come around after mains to ask if very thing was okay and I suppose we should have said something then, but on a celebratory evening you just don’t feel like ruining the atmosphere. We had to when dessert arrived. My koeksisters were limp and soggy with absolutely no hint of lemon at all, and if that was a coconut custard it came with, then I’m Mr Singh himself. The twice baked chocolate pudding just lacked any finesse, the croissants were old and hard and the only redeeming factor was that the chocolate tasted of good quality.I must compliment the service staff here, especially Amelia, who stepped in immediately and offered us a dessert off the a La carte menu. It too was the work of an amateur. We ate at Protégé the day before and if their chefs are Masters of their Arts, yours are barely out of Nursery School. Sorry, but that’s the truth!We had high expectations of our anniversary dinner at this restaurant in this beautiful setting, based on the impeccable standards of all the other Franschhoek restaurants we have eaten at, but Oh! What a disaster. Hopefully our feedback will help you improve the quality of the food at this amazing venue. P. S. I sent them this letter/review 10 days ago and have still NOT had a reply from them.

  November 20, 2019, 2:35 am

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