Margot Janse
To eat the food of Margot Janse in The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francaise in Franschhoek is to sit at a table in Lucullan heaven.
We dined there recently on a warm late summers evening where Margot fed us her choice of the most enchanting, delicious, amusing, unfiddled with genuine food.
The wine list was so vast and the selection so broad, we just took wines by the glass and had huge fun tasting many wines, we had wanted to taste and retaste.
The service in The Tasting Room is superb. The well-trained team of Franschhoek locals, for whom this was a profession not a part time job to earn pocket money, was charming and totally conversant with each dish and its various parts.
The room was more than half full of tourists – possibly resident in the hotel.
The Tasting Room offers three menu options.
A five course @ 550 from which you can choose 9 dishes and a cheese and four desserts. You need to cast aside the tradition of first course main course and dessert here, for you can have four dishes and a dessert. You can choose from [amongst others, the menu changes daily]
Pigs trotter, sweetbread and apricot salad
Magret duck breast, confit leg tortellini, pea parfait, nectarine & juniper
Amarula panna cotta, smoked fudge foam & espresso ice cream
An 8 course menu @ 700 or matched course for course with some stunning wines @ 980.
And here your choices could be
Foie gras, prosciutto, cranberry & smoked whisky dressing
Braised, free range klein karoo lamb, chakalaka marmalade, salted grapes & roast garlic while you dessert might be Orange & buttermilk cannelloni, raw Jersey milk sherbet & fennel.
It was the sort of experience that made one want to go back. Tomorrow!
Sousvide quail breast with truffled asparagus
