Spring time at Foxcroft

Here is my long overdue post about the Foxcroft and Dine Plan promotion in association with Constantia Valley Wine.

WOW! The food was phenomenal! The chefs really outdid themselves with the spring menu, and my love for this restaurant continues to grow. Hopefully you'll be able to see the attention to detail and amazing presentation from the pictures. The menu is exciting and the combinations are not something you'll find anywhere else - it really makes it so special to dine here!

The wines paired with the meals were all from vineyards in the Constantia Valley and they were truly exquisite! It was a great opportunity to experience new wines that you wouldn't necessarily know of or choose for yourself. And some of the wines rank amongst the top 10% in the world - checked using the Vivino App (available on the Apple App Store http://bit.ly/2KmULHD).

The dinner was started with our first wine - Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2017. This wine was light and crisp, and you could pick up tropical fruit (as mentioned in the winemaker’s notes) in both the smell and taste. This is definitely a great wine to be enjoyed on warm summer days. Our first dish was cured sustainable fish with cucumber and apple, accompanied by a mosbolletjie. This dish looked like an artwork (almost too beautiful to eat), and the different green and pink shades really gave you a spring time feeling. Mosbolletjies are Cape-Dutch sweet bread rolls made using grape must, left over during the wine making process (which acts as the raising agent), and spices such as aniseed. The cured fish was served in a sashimi style, and the fresh cucumber and apple were the perfect compliments to a spring starter. The wine paired well with this dish - as both were fresh and crisp. My mosbolletjie was used to soak up all the delicious kefir sauce remaining. I thought this would be my favorite dish of the evening...

Second on the wine list for the pairing, was Eagles Nest Viognier 2017. You know when the winemaker’s notes say that you should pick up white pear aromas, and you don’t, but pretend you do? With this wine, there’s no need to pretend! You can immediately smell the pear! It’s a very light and creamy wine - and definitely a new find for our family. This was paired with the course which I thought would now be my favorite of the evening: Pork belly & Tentacles with aubergine purée and peanuts. The pork belly was cooked perfectly - crispy and sweet and succulent. You can (hopefully) see the glaze on the fat (my mouth is drooling again). I was surprised how well the tentacles and aubergine purée went with the pork belly - but I should know by now that Foxcroft chefs know what they’re doing with their pairings. If I could have this meal every week, I would!

I always get a little sad when I know I’m half way through a menu, because I don’t ever want the dining experience to end. Fortunately, the next wine and meal left me happier than I usually am at this point in a meal. The Steenberg Nebbiolo 2015 was a beautiful deep red and purple wine, with hints of cherries and raspberries - which you definitely do pick up in the aroma. It’s hands down one of the best red wines I’ve ever had! To pair with this delightful wine, was glazed free-range Duck with nectarines, green olive and mushroom, and garlic purée. At this point I realized every plate had been my favorite - and this one was delicious! The duck was cooked to perfection and the nectarines added that splash of spring time feeling, whilst the mushroom and olive remind you of a true French affair. This is another dish I wouldn’t mind having on a regular basis.

And now, for my favorite course of all time - dessert! The dessert wine was Buitenverwachting’s 1769 - a muscat amongst the top 3% in the world! This sweet wine is filled with apricot and apple aromas, and was the perfect wine to finish the evening off with. The dessert was Warm Hazelnut Cake with whipped Azelia (hazelnut chocolate), and celeriac ice-cream. This was amazing! I just wish there was more! The dessert wasn’t too sweet or too bitter, it was just right. The Azelia added a creative and different taste to the warm cake, enhancing the hazelnut flavor, whilst the celeriac ice-cream kept things light and sweet. As much as I loved the savory courses, the sweet stood it’s ground - but pudding always wins in my book.

To end off our evening, we received petit fours. I once heard someone say they are “chef’s favors” to thank you for dining with them, and I quite like that meaning and have since always associated that with petit fours. We received a pear marshmallow which was light and fluffy and, of course, the pear flavor came through. Then, best for last, was the passion fruit macaron. I love macarons, and it is so difficult to find such delicious ones in South Africa, I wanted to savor the taste and sweetness of this little passion fruit wonder for longer. If anything, I’ll go back to Foxcroft just for the macarons.

I’m not a food or wine connoisseur, so my descriptions and observations may not be the most exact or accurate, but I love good food and I love restaurants that can combine unique and unusual flavors and get me hooked on them. This is something Foxcroft does without fail. I cannot recommend this restaurant enough!

The Foxcroft Spring Lunch Special is currently available and I would highly recommend it for anyone who loves great food!

Price: R295 What you’ll get: 4-course meal including a complimentary carafe of wine When: weekdays until 30 November

Tags: #restaurant #capetown #food #wine #winepairing #southafrica #foxcroft #dining #capetownfood #finedining