Food that is art at The Waterside | Eat. Play. Drink. Cape Town.

WITH lunch at The Waterside at V&A Waterfront, I finally collected the full set of La Colombe Group of restaurants. Although I haven’t been to La Petite Colombe at Leeu Estates since John Norris-Rogers moved to Pier – above The Waterside, and where he won the Eat Out Chef of the Year award in 2022 – and Peter Duncan took over, so that’s a technicality.

All seven restaurants in the group are currently running their annual winter special menus until August 31, so if any of them are on your wish list, now’s the time to book a table. At The Waterside, which along with Pier, has one of the most stunning locations you could hope for, the six-course lunch offers options for each; the full menu (“it’s only two more courses,” said my friend Arran, whom I was delighted to see there) takes away all the agony of deciding what to have. Unless you have allergies or what what, in which case these will be accommodated.

Right. So here we go. My friend began with the chipotle, apple and cucumber oysters while I watched. At the same time came a tower topped with a glossy milk bun. Layered beneath that are housemade butter with caper vierge, crispy capers, confit garlic and candied pine nuts for sweetness and texture, and rosemary oil; smoked snoek pâté shaped like a flower with jewelled with paprika and coriander oils; and the canapé of beef tartare on an oat biscuit with kimchi mayo dressing. I am leaving out some details here because each dish will be explained to you by knowledgeable staff and there should still be some surprises.

Next up is prawn salad with apricot and sweet potato with cumin, lemon and coriander sauce, followed by the prettiest circle of salmon sashimi, avocado mousse, green apple, cucumber and pickled shimeji mushrooms cradling a light Thai broth. My relationship with cauliflower has grown strained over years of following a low carb lifestyle but I fell in love again with the cauli risotto with curry leaf, smoked labneh and hazelnut.

After a refreshing palate cleanser – and no matter how old you are, it’s sad when you drop your ice cream – it is onto the meat dishes. There is confit pork belly with Chinese spices, sweetcorn purée, crackling, kimchi miso aubergine, hoisin dressing and spiced coriander buttermilk. For those who can, the dish includes a seared scallop; I got an extra piece of pork, something with which I could live. Oven-roasted Karoo lamb crusted with a chermoula crumb sits on top of creamed Swiss chard, with spinach purée, a disc of lamb neck and delicate vegetables.

As is the norm at LC restaurants, the cheese course is usually served next but I remembered to request that the sweet dessert be brought first so we could finish on a savoury note. This was smoked honey, almond cookie, fresh naartjie and naartjie marmalade, and rooibos caramel ice cream. I thought we were done after the cheese – goat’s, blue, Boerenkaas, linseed and sesame crackers, gooseberry and bay leaf jam, spekboom chutney – but I stepped away from the table for a few moments and when I returned, I found Arran at the table with the Bon Bon Chest – your choice of a final chocolate, each of which looked like a magical sparkly shiny galaxy. A person just can’t say no, it would be rude. It left me with the ear worm chorus of Another Universe, the beautiful Arno Carstens song: “From the galaxy of blues/ To a universe we choose/ No more crying and just maybe somebody to hold…”