A Table in the Corner

This is the second time I've had Lance Littlefield on the show. Back on Episode 77 he was an absolute mine of information on the craft of baking sourdough bread. We were introduced to 'Alfonsina' his starter, and the wonders of Motherdough Bakery. Almost a year later, he and partner Willem van Schalkwyk have had their Stellenbosch store running for 6 months, and there are plans for another venue. In this episode though, with the upcoming Food Indaba in mind, I spoke to Lance about the use of AI in running the bakery. AI and the Food System is the theme...

I've known Christophe Dehosse for over a decade. The incredible bistro, deli and butchery he runs with his wife Susan is just round the corner from the site of my first Winelands restaurant. He was always good for a loooooong natter about the industry when I rocked up at Klein Joostenberg looking for ingredients, and some of the chefs I hold in high regard (like George Jardine and Rudi Liebenberg) consider him a bit of a legend. It was only when I interviewed Matthew Gordon from Franschhoek on the show recently, that I discovered that his trail of culinary...

In this episode I speak to Melanie Stewart who is the farm manager of Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF). The farm and her Tea With A Farmer farm tours are part of the two week programme for the Food Indaba happening in Cape Town from 7th to 20th of July, 2025. The Food Indaba explores the possible impacts and benefits of AI on African food systems. We spoke about this and about the use of AI in an app that helps OZCF with crop rotation. We also spoke about their allotment system, public participation, and the produce boxes available weekly from...

Bertus Basson is an absolute biscuit. He has an uncanny instinct for opening places you love to visit and feeding you things you love to eat. He's also been a tremendous source of advice and support since we first met in 2008. Ongetem is his new restaurant - his first sit-down eatery in Cape Town, and he's opened it in Park Road, Gardens in the new Hilton Canopy Hotel. It's brand new, so I've only managed to eat an excellent breakfast there, but it's dripping in the biker-chic style that increasingly defines Bertus's easy dining. It's not exactly casual, as...

With a vague idea of generating a passive income using a bunch of catering stuff he had in storage, Will Hobson has built an iconic hangout in Sea Point with business partner Stephanie Anastasopoulos. ' Arthur's Mini Super' is many things to many people. (It's not a passive income for anyone though.) It's a place to chill after a walk on the promenade or a yoga session, a co-working spot, a handy local deli for the bread and milk, a sandwich bar, somewhere to meet for drinks after work. It's just an awesome place to hang, with a fantastic...

Well curated markets are fantastic places to discover new products. I found the most delicious roast pork belly croissant at the Candor market a while back. It was delicious and unexpected and the story behind the baker so interesting that I immediately invited her to chat to me on the show. Based on the idea of a circular economy, Candor is predominantly a vintage clothing and repurposed or up-cycled product market, but it also attracts some really interesting food vendors. I've already spoken to the peeps from Not Sad Food Co and Egg & Shoulders who had stalls there. Labour...

Geoffrey Abrahams and Teenola Govender are joint-head chefs at Coy Restaurant in the V&A Waterfront. They are affectionately known as G&T in the kitchens were they've worked, and these include Chefs Warehouse and Mazza. Having first met in the kitchen at Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia, they are an inseparable, creative kitchen team who blew me away with Mazza at Heritage Square and have quickly established Chef Ryan Cole's Coy venue as a must-visit eatery. We sat down for a chat about their journey as chefs and the triumphant return of the Mazza fire-roasted whole fish which now...

A while back, when we lived in the Swartland town of Darling, one of our regular delights was the drive to Yzerfontein to collect bread. Against a pretty large proportion of 'the odds', Yzerfontein is home to one of the best bakeries in the Western Cape - Rosemead Bakery. Run by Brett Nortjé, Rosemead was an absolute legend of a place: chilled, friendly, all about locals and Brett can bake like hell. You'd always need to order bread ahead, and it would be waiting neatly wrapped on the 'collection' shelf. But then... you had to grab a couple of o...

Tunde Akintan has taken his love of chillies and hot food and turned it into an urban farming project near Gordon's Bay. We chatted about how the new product stand at OZCF Market has introduced Tunde and his 42 varieties of chillies to a broader market, with an introduction to Silwood Cookery School where he recently chatted to 1st year students about Yellow Wheelbarrow. This was a fantastic and informative chat with someone who is actively building a niche market gardening business by collecting and sharing as much information about chillies as he can.

The Yellow Wheelbarrow

Huge supporters of this show, the team from Zuney Burger has brought an entirely fresh perspective to both livestock farming, and the farm-to-table movement. Their pasture-reared Wagyu beef makes it's way direct to consumers in the form of an astonishingly good burger. Henk Klopper and Denys Wells farm the cattle on lush pasture in the Eastern Cape, their sons Henk and Devon handle the sales and set up the burger operation. This was as much about ensuring that a certain podcaster had access to the best possible burger as it was about sustainability and an ingenious way to use...

It is a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's Brad Armitage. Not for lack of trying, but it's taken 120 episodes to convince an operator I admire tremendously to pop in for a chat on the show. Not one to blow his own trumpet, along with Rui Esteves, Brad created Vida e Caffè and followed it with Brewers & Union, the craft beer legend. There have been other bangers, but we confined our chat to those and to his current project with the City of Cape Town and other role-players bringing new life and fresh perspectives to downtown Cape Town w...

I snatched a rare chance to connect with Kobus van der Merwe of Wolfgat and sit down for a chat. He was taking a break in Yzerfontein - halfway from Paternoster to Cape Town, and we met at Rosmead Bakery to record a show. I long ago joined the legion of his fans, when my wife and I enjoyed the tasting menu at his parents’ general dealer store 'Oep ve Koep' around the time we were running The Table at De Meye. Kobus is easy to admire - his laser-focus on the simple preparation of hyper-local ingredients and a co...

This is possibly the most fascinating episode I've recorded to date. Tapiwa Guzha was on my first ever list of guest. There were 10 or 12 people on that list, and had I spoken to Tapiwa way back then, it may well have changed the shape of the show. He is an incredibly engaging person, and to say he 'thinks out of the box' is to misunderstand him completely. He was never in a box, nor indeed was he ever anywhere near a box of any sort. I really loved talking to him and he raised some issues about food ways...

I'm following my curiosity about people who make a living from food outside of formal restaurants again. This time I'm chatting to Dean Roux who owns and operates a food truck called Truck Norris. Apart from the fact that his truck has a legendary name, he's a really good operator who understands the landscape in which he operates and offers a straightforward product. Truck Norris does burgers. That's it. Burgers. (And there are fries.) His team is slick and the truck is popular. We chatted about running food trucks, what it costs to get involved, the bloom in operators...

The FOOD INDABA is an annual programme of talks and events that focus on the local food system. Running from 7-20 July this year, it brings together a wide range of speakers involved in shaping the food system, providing an opportunity for food growers, academics, activists, writers, nutritionists, policy makers, food lovers and anyone interested in sustainable approaches, to engage in key issues intimately connected to the food we eat, and the future of food. The conference component of the Indaba on July 18 explores the potential impacts and opportunities of AI (artificial intelligence) on African food systems. Their exciting...

A short while back, I discovered Stereo Eats through my friend Gillian Key. This concept eatery is based on a dark kitchen and an app which offers the best of 6 different fast- or convenience-food brands. It’s now a firm favorite with my daughter and I reached out to one of the directors, Max King to find out more. Interesting concept which I think totally gets the challenges of single-brand franchise stores competing for space in a market with shrinking and ever-more expensive real estate options. It was a great chat with a creative, entrepreneurial mind  with a great gra...

Nic Charalambous, the driving force, creator and voice behind the wildly popular Ouzeri restaurant in Wale Street, was my fourth guest on the show. Way back on Episode 4 he'd been open a year and found his easygoing eatery - which celebrates his Cypriot heritage and its culinary traditions as well as those of Greece - awarded a star at the Eat Out Awards. In year three, in late March 2025, Ouzeri joined the ranks of two star Eat Out Restaurants. Nic and I chatted about his journey, the focus and intention he brings to what he does, and what Eat...

Veld & Sea has one of my favourite Instagram pages, and the mission of its founder - to teach people about the land and the ocean of Cape Town's south peninsula through foraging and flavour - has long fascinated me. I finally got to meet Roushanna Grey and we had an engrossing conversation. As always it was too short and there was so much more we could have explored. Links to her website and that beautiful Instagram profile are below if you want to learn more.
Veld & Sea

The Instagram Page 

Week after week I see the menus for Egg & Shoulders ready meals. They are seasonal, interesting and depart from the norm of the home delivery or frozen meal services. Of course there are the standards - the lasagne, the ravioli - but there are always interesting things. While I've been tempted to order many times, I sometime wonder who else is ordering terrines or wild leaf salads. Curious about her drive for innovation, who her customers are, and how she reaches them, I sat down for a chat with Emily Harriet Bulbring Robertson. I learned she is a very...

Matthew Gordon has been there since the beginning. He is one of the architects of the explosion of restaurants in the previously sleepy Western Cape village of Franschhoek. Haute Cabriere put him firmly on the map, but the little restaurant he operated out of his family guesthouse, Balon Rouge is where it all began. Today he is the chef/operator of French Connection which has been a popular eatery in the village for the past 23 years. We spoke about the growth of Franschhoek's dining scene, the changes he's seen, people he's worked with, and the importance of consistency in...

Chef Peter Ayub runs the excellent Sense of Taste Cooking school with his wife Deb, teaching young hopefuls the trade of being a chef. He reached out, concerned about how some of his students are treated when they go out into the industry to do their pracs and learn about how kitchens work. We share the view that these young chefs are there to absorb new skills and be taught by the chefs under whom they work. The reality in some frantically busy, sometimes under-staffed businesses is that they end up on the line, working as unpaid staff on...

It's taken a while to get the timing and travel right to sit down with South African culinary icon, Chef Reuben Riffel, to explore his incredible journey from a simple start in Franschhoek kitchens, to becoming a household name. In this episode we dive into his early mentorship under Chef Christophe Dehosse, his pivotal partnership with Chef Richard Carstens, and his evolution through fine dining to casual ventures like Let’s Frite. 

Reuben's, Franschhoek

Let's Frite, Franschhoek

Hilde-Lee Olivier left cooking school and quickly climbed the ranks in local kitchens. By the time she was 26 Hilde-Lee was running the Kitchen at Terroir and went on to be head chef for George Jardine at Jardine Restaurant in Stellenbosch. After a brief stint and a huge learning curve running her own place - Toebroodjie, she pitched it all in and went sailing. We spoke about her journey and about the life she's chosen running a kitchen on a private yacht - it's quite a trip.

For some time now I've been wanting to talk to someone on the show who manages the marketing - and the profiles - of restaurants. I'm interested in how eateries, especially the top shops, market themselves. This is particularly tricky in a world where everyone seems to be a critic and even the very best operators can find themselves at the mercy of 'keyboard warriors'. While people have a legitimate right to tackle venues on poor service or experiences - balance, good judgement and manners are often left at the door in the online world we navigate. Then there...

Carlotta Sabbalini is fantastic - she's a real entrepreneur who's built a food business on the back of a lasagne recipe she learned from her grandmother, Nonna Santina. Along the way she's tried new things, added elements to the business and learned a whole lot of skills that are really vital for a small business operator. I've been wanting to talk to someone whose built a cottage industry based on family recipes and Carlotta just happened to message me and ask if she could join me on the show. That took some chutspa, and it's exactly the kind of...

It started with a dream and a little Piaggio three-wheeled scooter with a pizza oven in the back, but Mario Gaito has built a business that delivers delicious Napoli-style pizza to selected deli and supermarket chillers around Cape Town. It's a great story that features one of my favourite things - wood-fired pizza ovens. We could have gone on and on chatting - this was one of my favourite episodes so far. However we were recording in a very loud place and had to call it a day eventually. I really look forward to my next encounter with Mario...

This was a conversation full of laughs with Chef Amori Burger of Upper Union restaurant. Her warm, engaging, fun personality permeates a restaurant which have quickly become an institution in Cape Town and a firm favourite among a legion of very happy customers. We sat down for a chat against the backdrop of their beautiful upstairs cocktail bar and spoke of Sunday lunches, bold flavours, the perfect bite and testing all the wines and cocktails to make sure they're up to scratch for guests. It was a hoot.
Upper Union Restaurant

Loubie Rusch knows a hell of a lot about local plants. How to grow them. What you can and can't eat. How to cook or prepare them for consumption. She also knows a lot about local food systems and how connection to the land preserves indigenous food plants and the environment at large. We got into a whole bunch of converging topics in the food security space and yet, after over an hour there was so much we left untouched. It's not the usual food fare for this show, but we started to unpack some compelling matters around access...

In this episode, I chat to Durban chef, photographer and knife-maker Sebastian Amadeo Nico.  He's deeply connected to the food world through his father, Marco Nico of Ciao Italia fame, but his path has been somewhat winding - from working in his dad's kitchen at La Storia in the Westville Hotel, to mastering food photography which started out as a bit of a hobby inspired by his mom Kerryne. Along the way he's built motorcycles and taught himself the art of crafting knives - a combination of heat and heavy tools balanced with delicate precision. The knives he shows o...

With 100 episodes of A Table in the Corner in the bag, I felt it might be time to do a  biographical insert for episode 101. Some of my guests have asked when the spotlight would fall on me. A few of our regular listeners have also asked via Instagram DMs when I'm going to be interviewed. Jonathan Warncke recently invited me onto his industry-focused podcast 'How to Start a Podcast in South Africa', and I cajoled him into being the guest host on my show - to turn the tables on A Table in the Corner. Turns out there was a...

George Jardine needs very little introduction if you've followed the Western Cape Restaurant scene for any length of time. There was a stretch when he was repeatedly named the best chef in South Africa and his restaurants have been in the local honour rolls regularly over the past two decades. I consider him a friend - even though it took ages for him to agree to appear on the show. Our chat ranged from his early career and getting going in cooking to his current role as the Culinary Director of Valor Hospitality for Africa and the Middle East...

Ayesha Bibi (Juwaley) runs a superb little patisserie business out of Makers Landing at the Ocean Cruise Terminal in the V&A Waterfront. We sat down for a chat about her journey from studying film and environmental science at University to being an accomplished pastry chef. After studying at Capsicum Culinary Studio in Cape Town, she joined the kitchen at The One & Only Hotel, where she worked for six years before lighting out on her own. I was keen to understand how one runs an online business based on such a delicate and perishable product as cakes and baked...

David Higgs made his bones in the local dining scene in the mid- to late-‘naughties’ when he helmed the multi-award winning Rust en Vrede restaurant in the Western Cape Winelands. Then he packed up and went to Jo'burg and chatter around this lively, entertaining and gifted chef got a bit quiet for a while. Then the buzz started about The Saxon's kitchen and he was in the awards lists again. In 2016, along with partner Gary Kyriacou, David opened Marble restaurant in Rosebank with its impressive wood-fired grill. It was all about live-fire cooking and a hell of a vibe...

William Jardine is a young chef who, at 22, is a line chef (or chef de partie) in a prestigious Edinburgh restaurant. The Kitchin was the first establishment in Scotland to receive a Michelin Star and focuses on working with the very best in Scottish produce. It is one of Scotland’s most celebrated eateries. As the son of George and Louise Jardine, William is no stranger to award-winning restaurants though. We sat down for a chat about how it’s going, how he got there, and what he’s planning to do with his international cheffing experience. 

In this episode, I chat to Andrew Nel of Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants, an ethical butchery with branches in the Woodstock, Gardens and Claremont suburbs of Cape Town. FFMM was founded by Andy Fenner and his wife Nicole to honour the practice of nose-to-tail eating, in which they emphasised sustainable practices by sourcing whole animals and using every part with respect. Andrew joined the business in 2017 and continues the journey, having added long table events to the FFMM calendar to foster a deeper connection between consumers and their food while promoting conscious meat consumption. By championing ethical sourcing in...

In this week's episode of A Table in the Corner, the first for 2025,  we explore the delightful world of Grumpy & Runt, a vegan donut shop co-owned by Johke Steenkamp and Carla Gontier. This little beaut shares premises with Ditto, the oat milk ice cream spot on Kloof Street. I chat to Johke about how G&R started out, some of the challenges along the way and mostly about how they have intentionally built a business that celebrates inclusivity and sustainability through their artisanal donuts. Johke and Carla have crafted not just a menu of indulgent treats, but also become t...

I've been wanting to chat to Abigail Donnelly on the show for absolute ages. Her recipes and food styling for local magazines have delivered global cuisines and flavours to South African homes for almost two decades. From the pages of Taste magazine - mouthpiece of Woolworths Food - to the tables of the country's top eateries, hers is a powerful voice in driving how we cook, and how we understand the restaurant industry. On the first day of Abigail's well-deserved year-end leave, we sat down for a natter at her home on Cape Town's southern peninsula.

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Chef Ollie Swart loves to cook and he really, truly loves feeding people. He even went out and got us cheese & ham croissants from Foxcroft to scoff during our chat. Ollie's Instagram Profile is a thing of pure joy - full of a happy, enthusiastic young chef enjoying the hell out of creating and sharing food. His more than 45k followers are testament to the infectious nature of his love for cooking and catering. We sat down for a natter about working for the iconic Annalize Catering; menus that are more than just 'chicken a la king'; creating a...