Rust en Vrede

Our first night in the Winelands we had made a reservation at Rust en Vrede, one of the top 100 restaurants in the world.  As you can see, we ate well in the Winelands.  Rust en Vrede is a 45 minute drive from downtown Franschhoek where we were staying.  Poor Nick had to drive me and therefore couldn't drink very much.

We both opted for the 6 course tasting menu.  I had the wine pairings as well.  I don't have any pictures of the interior but I really liked the style of the restaurant.  Great service but very casual.  We were situated near the open kitchen so we got to see the chefs at work.

Our amuse bouche was these cute little pots of pate.  One of the best parts of the meal, I have been dreaming about them ever since.

First course was pan fried scallop, Oscietra caviar, brown butter, yoghurt semifreddo, and a coriandor coulis.  The scallops were very well done and paired so well with the yoghurt.

Second course was monkfish poached in curry oil, pickled yoghurt, cucumber salad, and an almond curd.  I'm not a fish fan so it was only so-so for me.

Thid course was springbok with fromage blanc and honeycomb.  The springbok was good but nothing like the mouth orgy we had at Foodbarn the day before.

This is right about when I hit my wall.  I was still full from lunch.  The wine pairings were huge glasses so I felt like I had been chugging wine.  Ooops.  I always seem to get really full for the meat course but then rally for desserts.  The fourth course was fillet of beef, green bean and verbena puree with a warm potato salad, almond oil, and Egyptian lime confit.  This was a lovely piece of beef even though it was a struggle to eat. 

The fifth course was a cheese course.  I like that most restaurants in South Africa had both a cheese course and a dessert course.  I like cheese so much better.  This was a tete de Moine, pressed dried vine tomato, rocket and pine kernel dressing, and a kumato chutney.  I called it caulicheese since it looked like cauliflower to me.  So much more imaginative than just a simple cheese plate.

This was an extra little dessert.  I believe there was passionfruit in there.  It was better than our last course.

The final course was "toffee cherries", 25 second sponge, almond ice cream, and a Mousse of Valrhona Caramelia Chocolate.  I wasn't particularly impressed.  Whatever those red things were on the plate had a taste that I didn't care for at all.

Final verdict:  Neither of us thought the food "Top 100 in the World" worthy.  My favorites were the little pots and the cauilicheese.  Service was great although a tad slow, probably because it was taking me so long to finish my large glasses of wine.  Split the wine pairings unless you have endless room in your stomach and you want to be drunk by the end of dinner.