One Star House Party is a two-year long project created by Chef James Sharman, which sees him and his team visit 20 restaurants in 20 countries in 20 months! They have been to Vietnam, the Everest Base Camp in Nepal and most recently on a float in Kenya. Cape Town is city number eight and Team One Star has set up camp in a beautiful loft apartment in Woodstock until Thursday, 11 May. I attended the second Cape Town dinner last week and was firmly blown away.
As much as Cape Town is a global foodie capital, fine dining menus often lean on Western and Eastern style cooking. Not many top class restaurants wholly promote South African cuisine and ingredients. So even though Sharman and his team hail from Scotland, Ireland and Australia it was super refreshing to see traditional South African dishes and ingredients inspiring their seven course tasting menu.
“We apply the techniques we gleaned while working as chefs in some of the world’s best restaurants to the local food of the country we are in and serve this to our guests,” says Sharman.The chefs stay in each country for a month so they have plenty of time to learn about the city and its own particular food quirks, trends and produce. Cape Town saw the team foraging their own sea weed and drying their own biltong.
And what of the food? Well it is all unique, delicious and just a little magical. Some of the outstanding courses include, beef fat focaccia, with sliced steak tartare served with biltong spice, a smoked beetroot sauce, hazelnut puree and creamy homemade butter. Assemble all those ingredients in one bite and I swear it will feel as if your mouth is being caressed by a buttery richness, hard to forget.
The pop-up restaurant will be open till the 11 May. Tickets are $85 (about R1,100) each and available online on OneStarHouseParty.com. Guests are asked to BYOB.
