From fine dining to fire cooking: 12 chefs set to serve up something special at Taste of Cape Town - IOL

From La Colombe and FYN to Amura, Vuur and Upper Union, meet the celebrated chefs bringing their signature flavours and culinary creativity to Taste of Cape Town.

Cape Town's food scene is set to take centre stage as some of South Africa's most celebrated chefs bring their culinary talents together for Taste of Cape Town.

From internationally recognised fine dining and Japanese-inspired techniques to modern African cuisine, Italian seafood and open-fire cooking, the line-up showcases the diversity and creativity shaping the country's restaurant industry.

Featuring chefs behind some of the country's most acclaimed restaurants, the event promises food lovers an opportunity to experience the people, stories and distinctive flavours behind some of South Africa's biggest culinary names.

La Colombe is the highest-ranked restaurant on the African continent. In November 2026, it climbed 20 places to No. 35 on The 50 Best Restaurants list and took the Best Restaurant in Africa award with it. At home, it holds three stars at the 2026 Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards, the highest-scoring category.

La Liste scored it 96.5 points in 2025 and 94 points in 2026, crediting Gaag directly for the restaurant's renewed momentum and describing a light, creative approach built around herbs, vegetables and colour. In January 2026, Gaag was invited to cook at CONVERGENCE in Copenhagen, hosted by the two-Michelin-starred Alchemist, alongside more than 60 of the world's leading chefs.

Its speciality is contemporary fine dining, served as a multi-course tasting menu that applies refined classical techniques with a vegetable- and herb-forward approach. La Colombe sits on Silvermist Wine Estate, at the top of Constantia Nek in Constantia, Cape Town, overlooking the Constantia Valley towards the sea. It is widely described as the hardest table to secure in the city.

It is the flagship of Scot Kirton's La Colombe Group, which also includes La Petite Colombe in Franschhoek, Protégé, Foxcroft and other establishments. Gaag is executive chef and has been the restaurant's creative lead throughout its climb back into the global top 50.

FYN is the reigning Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant of the Year, South Africa's highest dining honour, which it won at the awards on 23 March 2026, when it also received three stars. It has featured on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list every year since 2021, peaking at No. 37 in 2022, when it was also named Best Restaurant in Africa. It has since held places on the extended 50 to 100 list.

In 2023, it received the Flor de Caña Sustainable Restaurant Award in Valencia, which recognised it as the most sustainable restaurant in the world. It holds a Gold rating and a three-plate rating from the JHP Gourmet Guide and was the first standalone restaurant in Africa to be admitted to Relais & Châteaux. At the 2026 awards, FYN and its sister restaurant, beyond, shared the Patrón Mixology Award.

Its speciality is Japanese technique applied to South African produce, served as a kaiseki-style menu comprising five waves of courses, with local sourcing and sustainability built into the approach rather than added as an afterthought.

Peter Tempelhoff, a trailblazer in the South African restaurant scene, opened FYN in late 2018 to immediate acclaim. Ashley Moss is culinary director and co-owner, running the pass alongside him, while Jennifer Hugé is the front-of-house and beverage director and the third co-owner.

The restaurant is in Cape Town's City Bowl. Both Tempelhoff and Moss are cooking at Taste, making FYN the only kitchen sending two chefs who share a pass.

Amura by Ángel León is the newest kitchen in the line-up and is already among the most decorated. It opened at Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, in December 2025. By March 2026, it had won both Best New Restaurant and the VISI Style Award at the Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards, as well as New Restaurant of the Year and the Style Award at the LUXE Restaurant Awards.

In the same month, TIME named it to the 2026 World's Greatest Places list, making it the only restaurant on the African continent to feature on the list of 100 destinations.

Ángel León sets the culinary direction. His restaurant, Aponiente, in the salt marshes of Cádiz, holds three Michelin stars and the region's first Michelin Green Star. Arlind Harizaj, who came up through the Aponiente group, runs the kitchen as executive chef and translates that vision onto Cape plates.

Its speciality is immersive marine dining: an ocean-led menu built around sustainably sourced Cape seafood, deliberately underused marine species and botanicals from the hotel's own gardens. It brings together the shared flavours of Cape Town and Cádiz, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet.

Signature dishes include plankton risotto, marine cold cuts such as tuna biltong and sea bass chorizo, yellowfin tuna steak tartare with cured egg yolk and dried tuna powder, pickled mussels and whole fried sea bass.

Amura is at 76 Orange Street, Gardens, Cape Town, in Mount Nelson's historic Planet Room and former Cape Colony Restaurant. Its interiors, designed by Tristan du Plessis, evoke the Cape's kelp forests.

Vuur Goose Island holds two stars at the 2026 Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards. Internationally, Vuur is the line-up's steak credential: it has placed on the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants list for consecutive years, at No. 88 and then No. 87, and is recognised as Africa's best steak restaurant.

Scrooby's route into fine dining was unconventional. He spent 17 years as a safari guide before converting an old stable at Remhoogte into a restaurant in April 2022. Demand was strong enough for him to open a second site, Vuur Goose Island, in December 2023.

Its speciality is open-fire cooking, treated as both a method and a philosophy. Every dish is cooked over flames, coals and embers, and the team works with up to six varieties of wood so that the wood functions as a flavouring ingredient rather than simply as fuel. Harder woods are collected rather than cut for sustainability.

Vuur operates as a private dining experience, while Vuur Goose Island offers a shared chef's table seating 16 to 18 guests, with each plate paired with a Remhoogte wine.

Both restaurants are situated on Remhoogte Wine Estate on the R44 outside Stellenbosch. Vuur Goose Island is located on a small island in the estate dam, reached by a bridge and framed by the Simonsberg mountains. Guests may encounter zebra, wildebeest and nyala on the walk down.

Bertus Basson is the most established name in the line-up and the recipient of the Eat Out Woolworths Trailblazer Award, which he received in 2025 for his work in elevating South African food culture.

He was named Eat Out S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna Chef of the Year in 2019 for his work at Eike and Overture. Overture reached the Eat Out Top 10 five times before he closed it in 2022.

His restaurants collectively held four stars at the 2026 awards, with one star each for CHORUS in Somerset West, Eike and Spek & Bone in Stellenbosch, and Ongetem in Cape Town.

He has written two books, Homegrown and Being Bertus Basson, and has a long-standing television presence, making him the most recognisable face on the bill among a general audience.

His speciality is modern South African cooking rooted in heritage. Bobotie, waterblommetjies, biltong, bokkoms, pap and traditional puddings are all reworked using fine-dining techniques, without relying on nostalgia for its own sake.

The group operates across Stellenbosch, Somerset West, Paarl and now Cape Town. Its establishments include CHORUS at Waterkloof, Eike, Spek & Bone, Die Kantien and De Vrije Burger in Stellenbosch; Geuwels and Clara's Barn at Vergenoegd Löw; Ongetem at the Canopy by Hilton on Park Road, off Kloof Street; and Toevlug, which opened on Annandale wine farm in Stellenbosch on 1 October 2026.

Basson and Co is the group name rather than a single restaurant address, so the specific kitchen he will be cooking from at Taste should be named in the copy.

Gericke's personal record is one of the strongest in the line-up, even though URCHIN itself does not hold an Eat Out star.

He joined URCHIN in 2026 from CHORUS, which held two Eat Out stars while he was at the helm. Before that, he cooked at Qunu at The Saxon in Johannesburg.

He won the Fine Dining Lovers Food for Thought Award for Africa and the Middle East at the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy competition, was named San Pellegrino Chef of the Year in 2023 and South African Chef of the Year in 2024. In 2026, he was appointed head technical coach of the national junior team on its journey to the Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg.

He is an engaging speaker and a natural host, making him well suited to live demonstrations and interview slots.

His speciality is a Western Cape journey told on a plate. Gericke and his team travelled 1 627km across the province, from the fishing docks at Kalk Bay to the plains of the Karoo, and developed the nine-course Journey tasting menu around the producers and stories they encountered.

Large-scale photographs from the trip hang in the dining room, while the menu is priced at R1 627 per person to reflect the distance travelled.