Reaching Stella heights

13 Jul 2016

With so many top dining options in Cape Town and with new spots seemingly popping up on the hour, it's easy to forget that there are also top restaurants situated in hotels. I paid a visit to Stella Café and Bar at Southern Sun The Cullinan in the foreshore on Friday night and was truly impressed with this chic restaurant.

Situated on the ground floor next to the beautiful pool, the restaurant offers exciting cocktails, moreish tapas and main dishes al fresco by the pool or in a sleekly designed and elegantly lit indoor space.

From our arrival to exit we were well taken care of by the staff. The executive chef Henrico Grobbelaar also stopped by a few times to make recommendations and check everything was to our liking. Side note: Chef Grobbelaar was recently appointed captain of the South African National Culinary team which will represent SA in the 2016 IKA Culinary Olympics!

Let the cocktails flow

The barman recommended that we sample the cocktails and kept them flowing our way throughout the evening. We started with the Elderflower G&T with Inverocche Verdant gin, elderflower, lime, tonic and soda plus a sprig of rosemary. G&T - love, elderflower - love, together - delicious. Next up on the cocktail proceedings was the Vanilla, Pinotage & Rosso Mojito with Havanah Club Anejo, vanilla, mint, pinotage and soda. Quite a sweet cocktail because of the vanilla, I would recommend this one to the sweet-toothed, as well as the last cocktail we sampled; the decadent Nutty Angel, which included blended Amarula and vanilla ice cream layered with Frangelico and Nachtmusik. A concoction to get your pulse racing for sure.

On to less liquid forms of consumption. We decided to pick two of the smaller portioned tapas as a starter. On the recommendation from chef Grobberlaar we picked the Malay Braised Sausage with spicy tomato and onion sambal and a pickled cauliflower relish from the Cape Town Flavours section of the menu as well as the Salt & Pepper Squid with squid ink rice. Both dishes were full of flavour, the Malay spiced sausages wonderfully sweet and spicy while the crumbed calamari was light and crisp and the squid ink beautifully ocean-like and salty.

Healthy mains and decidedly unhealthy desserts

I could have quite happily worked my way through the eight tapas options, as they all sounded quite delicious, however, I decided to try the lamb cutlets from the main menu. The lamb was served with crunchy green beans, balsamic purple onion, sautéed tomato and mushrooms and a lemon yoghurt - a perfect option if banting and one that doesn’t leave you feeling too guilty. The lamb cutlets were tender and sweet and perfectly complimented by the veg.

Any smugness on choosing a slightly healthier main was quickly banished once our shared dessert was placed in front of us. The Chocolate Mousse Gateaux was rich and lush and oh so decadent and ended our night on a sugar rush high.