IT’S DIFFICULT to accept that of South Africa’s Top 30 restaurants in 2019, according to the critics and followers of the Eat Out restaurant guide, only five are located outside Cape Town and the surrounding winelands! Only one in Johannesburg? Only one in Durban? None in Bloemfontein, nor in Port Elizabeth? None at the country’s nature conservancies, game reserves, resorts?

Oh well, if Eat Out’s chief judge Margot Janse and her team are on the mark, those visiting or staying along the wine routes of Franschhoek, Stellenbosch, Somerset West and Constantia continue to be very well catered for, with the following wine farms home to some of the nominees for Eat Out’s Top 10 restaurants in South Africa to be honoured at an awards function mid-November:

TOP TABLES IN SA WINELANDS
Avondale, Paarl: FABER
Beau Constantia: Chefs Warehouse
Boschendal, Franschhoek: The Werf
Hidden Valley, Stellenbosch: Overture
Jordan, Stellenbosch
La Motte, Franschhoek: Pierneef
Maison, Franschhoek: Chefs Warehouse
Rust en Vrede, Stellenbosch
Silvermist, Constantia: La Colombe
Vergelegen, Franschhoek: Camphors
Waterkloof, Sir Lowry’s Pass, Somerset West

Wonderful winelands dining, although this selection is also not without some controversy, considering the omissions. Apparently the standards at Tokara and Delaire Graff restaurants in Stellenbosch are no longer up to Eat Out’s expectations, the Durbanville Hills restaurant isn’t as hot as the Haute Grandeur Global Restaurant Awards might indicate, and similar cases could be made for the inclusion of Wildekrans (Bot River), Quoin Rock (Stellenbosch), Kleine Zalze (Stellenbosch) and De Grendel (Panorama, Durbanville Wine Route).