Sarah Kingdom Eats At Terrarium by Chef Chris Erasmus And Discovers Sustainable Fine Dining In The Heart Of Cape Town.
Acclaimed South African chef, Chris Erasmus, has brought a creative spin on fresh, sophisticated flavours and a focus on sustainability, to Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, with the opening of his fine dining restaurant, Terrarium, in the five-star Queen Victoria Hotel. While the restaurant is led by Chris, Terrarium’s newly appointed Head Chef, Anlou Erasmus (no relation!), is in charge on a day-to-day basis.
Anlou shares Chris’s passion for provenance, sustainability, and zero-waste. Together they are creating something really different, a kitchen eco-system based on a sustainable ethos. Terrarium is built around the concept of regeneration and a commitment to remaining close to nature.
From your first sip of a glass of South African, Methode Cap Classique sparkling wine, sourced from the Cape’s cool Hemel-en-Aarde wine region and accompanied by a fresh west coast oyster with hake roe ‘toast’, to the final morsel of your rose geranium and honey nougatine with its accompanying Dak Wijn, a fortified Chenin Blanc, that’s been baked on the roof of the tasting room in demijohns and then finished off in barrel, your tastebuds are in for a treat. Terrarium offers two, often changing, parallel, eight-course tasting menus – Fauna and Flora.
The Fauna menu features hyper-local seafood and meat dishes, while the Fauna menu is plant-based dishes. Whichever menu you choose, every dish combines thoughtfully selected ingredients, at the height of their seasonality, and bold, exciting flavour combinations – a guaranteed memorable dining experience.
Chef Chris Erasmus grew up in the semi-arid Karoo. “My mother’s got a small business where she makes preserves and jams and things”, he says. “She’s always had it. She’s a proper cook. So I grew up cooking out of our vegetable gardens; preserving, pickling, fermenting. And my dad had a little butchery set up in his garage. We used to go hunting a lot and make our own sausages, biltong and droëvors. I grew up in a food family, where everything was made from scratch.
For me, it’s very important to know the origin of your food. It’s a respect thing. If people know exactly where it comes from and are part of the process, they don’t waste”. Chris has carried this philosophy across to his own cooking, from working internationally to spearheading one of South Africa’s top 10 restaurants, Foliage, previously based an hour out of Cape Town in Franschhoek. Sourcing local, sustainable and seasonal ingredients, from small local suppliers and family-owned businesses is important to Chris. For someone who spent his childhood living in small towns, this is the most authentic way of doing business.
In line with this ethos, the menu at Terrarium incorporates seasonal ingredients and some of the more unusual cuts of meat, reducing the demand for prime cuts, without compromising on flavour. The kitchen team is focussed on supporting the local community, from helping them learn to grow vegetables and herbs, to using fresh and forest-foraged ingredients, all the while sourcing local produce from small, family-owned fisheries, butcheries, smokers and beekeepers. “My passion for celebrating organic food, from farm and forest to plate, runs deep,” says Chris.
“True to its namesake Terrarium is a space that is built around the concept of regeneration and the commitment to remain close to nature. I am thrilled at the opportunity to introduce a contemporary spin on sustainable dining in an urban landscape”. The pioneering chef has discovered a wealth of hyperlocal food sources in Cape Town, from supporting urban community gardens to daily beach foraging expeditions, he’s even growing a hidden kitchen garden on the hotel’s doorstep.
Similarly to Chris’ approach to food, Terrarium’s wine list is personally curated by sommelier, Zimbabwean-born, Marlvin Gwese, who matches his choice of wine to the food. “There’s no cut-and-paste selection,” he says. Marlvin supports local wine suppliers, small bespoke winemakers and producers of natural wines as far as possible. The eight-course tasting menus feature some truly special South African wines. The linefish ceviche, with its bonito emulsion, is served with the Honeybunch Reserve from Remhoogte Wine Estate, a wine made only from grapes exposed to the morning sun side of the estate’s 35-year-old Chenin Blanc vineyard.
The charred kingklip with fermented blackberry is accompanied by the pale ruby-coloured Neethlingshof The Owl Post Pinotage, with its dark plum and cherry flavours and a complex earthy finish. The venison, with black garlic and porcini, is perfectly paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Waterford Estate, a vineyard renowned for its favourable terroir for producing world-class, structured red wines.
There’s also a great emphasis on art at Terrarium. Partnering with Ilse Schermers of IS Art Gallery, Chris and his team showcase up-and-coming South African artists’ work, from wood carvings to paintings made with natural African clay pigments. Each artwork takes the viewer on a visual journey, in much the same way Chris does with his culinary creations. And what a journey dinner is. Flavours and textures, each course in perfect balance, all the way to the very last course – rose geranium and honey iced nougatine with cocoa custard and honeycomb.
Perched on a hill just above Cape Town’s famous V&A Waterfront, the 30-seater restaurant feels chic but somehow still down to earth, there’s nothing unnecessarily pretentious here. Tall windows give out onto views of Table Mountain and there’s a slim terrace for pre-dinner cocktails. Despite its proximity to the hustle and bustle of the Waterfront, Terrarium gives off the atmosphere of an off-the-beaten-track gem, just waiting to be discovered. It won’t be long before Terrarium is a permanent fixture on the foodie map.
Tell Me More About Terrarium
Terrarium, Queen Victoria Hotel, Off Portswood Rd, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Phone: 021 419 6677
Email: terrarium@queenvictoriahotel.co.za
Opening hours: Monday – Sunday: 12h00 – 22h00
The eight-course Fauna menu is £46/$60 without the wine pairing and £76/$98 with wine pairing. The eight-course Flora menu is £33/$44 without wine pairing and £63/$81 with wine pairing.
