Food Services News South Africa

Explore South Africa's top restaurants plate by plate

Food lovers can now discover South Africa's top restaurants - from haute cuisine to hot-and-happening - with a new guide that navigates readers from major cities through country escapes en route, highlighting gourmet getaways, refined dining, and fabulous food all the way.
Explore South Africa's top restaurants plate by plate

A map, directions, and GPS coordinates will get the reader there and a QR code links them directly to a restaurant's website. This beautiful hardcover keepsake guide will also be used as a memento of these 'travels' in the recipes supplied by featured chefs. The guide is impartial and unbiased as there are no hotel or restaurant advertisers in it.

The inaugural JHP Gourmet Guide will be launched at the Good Food & Wine Show at the CTICC on 27 May 2016 where top featuring chefs will be collecting their awards between 10am and 4pm. After the launch, books will be sold (R299) in all leading book stores and will thereafter be available in e-book format.

The 'plating' rating

A panel of local and international professional gourmets anonymously evaluated these establishments, taking into account innovation, consistency, and service in addition to a wide spectrum of gourmet and sensory criteria.

The top 21 restaurants will receive one or two plates in a unique ‘plating’ evaluation system. A one-plate award is for excellent cuisine, a top-quality eating experience. Two plates are awarded for exceptional dining destinations - extraordinary cuisine that warrants a special trip. As consistency is such an integral part of performance in the restaurant industry, three plates will only be awarded to some or all of these restaurants for upholding and elevating their standards, in the future.

About the author and publisher

Jenny Handley owns a brand performance business and is an international restaurant reviewer, regularly writing for food and lifestyle publications and is the author of best-selling business books. She tops up her formal food qualifications annually by travelling globally on her taste buds. She is a member of Chaîne des Rôtisseurs.

Her blog, Jen’s Journeys of Flavour, reflects her reviews and views, home and away, from markets to Michelin-star restaurants. Handley is exposed to the restaurant industry regularly when running her ‘Master Class in Brand and Service Excellence’ workshops. Handley combines her passions of food, writing and brand performance in this guide.

MapStudio has been the leading publisher and distributor of maps, travel and lifestyle publications in Africa for over 55 years and has evolved to being the provider for all your mapping solutions, both paper and digital, dominating travel and travel related products including sport, activity and lifestyle publications.

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