La Colombe does what a restaurant is supposed to do best: cook, and deliver, fabulous food.
One of chef James Gaag’s signature dishes, Tuna ‘La Colombe’, the first dish put on the menu when the restaurant moved to Silvermist 10 years ago. It’s served with the Chef’s Secret Sauce. You’ll be hard pressed to list more than a few of the ingredients; and you’ll have a chance to have a stab at it.
A lengthy lunch provided a number of answers. The second is that this is not the place for a quiet tête-a-tête. You are virtually a part of the show, a bit player in a script. So much attention is lavished on you that you might well be on stage. There must be many reasons that you believe you got your money’s worth. And the bill will be jaw-dropping. Consider that a table of four with wine pairings will not be leaving less than R12k lighter. And that does not include water, sundries, or a tip. benefit in one huge way: being taken overseas once a year to dine at the eateries of their international contemporaries.
It’s the kickoff to the long game. Nothing will have less impact on the palate from this morsel on. Everything here is as beautiful as you would hope it to taste. And that, given La Colombe’s status, fame and pricing, is precisely what you would expect. Any criticism could only be petty. Each protein is paired with what they call “spreads”. The Wagyu biltong is with what looks like a mushroom but is a fine pâté composed of mushroom and a soubise of truffled smoked onion, not a sauce, as a soubise usually is, but has been set softly to deliver a cool thrill to the palate. The mushroom cap has a sherry glaze. A dark-red chilli much like a red jalapeño turns out to be pâté of Calabrian nduja sausage coated with a smoked tomato glaze.
James explained after the event: “The tuna can was the first dish we put on the menu when we moved from our previous venue, Constantia Uitsig. It was the first time we used new and different serving ware and it’s grown from there. Our current version is served with the chef’s secret sauce. It contains between 20 and 25 ingredients that change all the time.” And it is made fresh, every time.
Cape Coastline is the apt name for what follows. That’s False Bay, on a plate, a tribute to chef James Gaag’s passion for deep sea fishing, right there. It’s time to descend to the mysteries below. Cellphones are placed in a box and removed. We’re led down narrowing, darkening stairs. In a subterranean world that I’m not going to over-describe, so as not to spoil your pleasure when you go down there, one of the most impressive sommeliers I have yet encountered is going to take us through an utterly magical tasting. Let’s leave it right there, out of respect for Gaag’s taste for enchantment.
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