EVENTS.EXPERIENCES.ADVENTURES.
FEBRUARY 2018
Summer Wines Festival at Leopards Leap
Pop-up restaurant … perpetual bliss Double Michelin-starred Belgian chef Piet Huysentruyt will soon open a pop-up restaurant at The Conservatory on Happy Valley Road.
institutions before opening his own eponymous eatery in the late 1980s. His efforts were rewarded with a Michelin star in 1994.
The pop-up restaurant is a visiting version of Huysentruyt’s Likoké Restaurant in Les Vans in France’s Rhône Valley. Huysenstruyt says that “Everything at Likoké has always been about a story, about roots, soul and emotion and art.” With this philosophy a ‘standard’ pop-up restaurant as a way to keep busy during the French winter simply wouldn’t do and eventually developed into a world tour – “just as a rock band would do.”
True to his rebellious nature his cuisine became famous for revolutionary combinations of noble ingredients and offal. When he published his first book, with food photographer Tony Leduc, it was appropriately titled “Contemporary and Stubborn”. It was also the first time in history that the phrase “ food porn” was coined!
Their first destination was Huysenstruyt’s native Belgium, followed by stopovers in Japan, Indonesia and Singapore. Franschhoek is the restaurant’s last and only African stop before heading back home. The restaurant team is being followed by a TV crew, writer and photographer with a view to publishing a book about their culinary world tour. Huysentruyt attended the Ter Duinen Culinary Institute against his parents’ wishes. He went on to work at some of Belgium’s and France’s most prestigious culinary
www.franschhoeklife.co.za
Feeling misunderstood and underappreciated Huysentruyt closed his first restaurant and went on to become a celebrity TV chef – creating more than 20 cooking shows and selling more than 4 million books along the way. Likoké welcomed its first diners in 2013 and received a Michelin star a mere five months later. The Gault et Millau Restaurant Guide awarded it three toques later the same year as well as its Discovery of the Year accolade. Today the restaurant is ranked 39th on the WBP Stars World’s Best Restaurants List. The African stop on Likoké’s world tour has particular
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