Tim James: Great food and overpriced wine at Fyn

By , 30 September 2019

Comment

9

I’ve rather lost patience with (and anyway can’t regularly afford) tasting-menu fine dining – the sort that involves peering into the depths of a large bowl to find a minuscule, artful arrangement of about 24 ingredients, while the server comes every ten minutes or so to interrupt the conversation with another exquisitely prepared morsel and expect praise for the previous one.

But I was feeling that life is short and I needed a fine-dining shot, and I’d heard good things about Fyn, Peter Tempelhof & co’s Japanese-local fusion restaurant in Cape Town, so I and a foodie friend who fine-dines around the world trotted along there (well, Ubered along there) last Saturday night. And had a wonderful time. Much more so, I think, than Daisy Jones did, going by her rather underwhelmed report of a lunch there last January. Also, Daisy had little to say about the wine list beyond its being “proudly, knowledgeably local”, and I have something to add to that. Or subtract from it, perhaps.

The first thing to express is relief that the set menu (R1075 per person; also available with wine pairings) was both long and substantial. Plenty of food came in eight beautifully presented but not too precious, well paced and expertly delivered waves, each consisting of one to four components – for the more complex ones we were gently instructed on the best order of eating them. I can’t do much analysis of the food, but it was exciting, revelatory (the quintessence of smoked snoek for example!), and above all marvellously delicious. The only little grumble we could come up with between us was that the rice in the one piece of sushi (also delicious) was too soft, lacking texture. What a perverse pleasure it was to find something to criticise!

View from mezzanine level, Fyn restaurant, Cape Town.

The photo, by the way, shows the view from our table on the small mezzanine level (I wouldn’t have really wanted to be at any of the other tables on this floor, but ours at the edge was great), looking down to the kitchen, preparation area and a seating counter, through the innumerable discs of the hanging ceiling that delightfully suggest pebbles in water.

As to the wine: Fyn allowed me, with no apparent resentment, to bring a few special bottles at R150 corkage each. That’s generous these days, as the privilege of BYO seems to be increasingly slipping away. (It would be a useful project to start a list of restaurants that allow BYO at a reasonable corkage charge.) Especially generous when one realises the profit that Fyn is making from its wine mark-ups. I’ll come back to that after lovingly recalling the wines I took.

The first, and extremely successful as partner to most of the food we had with it, was Sadie ‘T Voedpad 2009 – sadly, nearly my last bottle of this maiden release, the one with the Kentridge drawing on the label. Drinking beautifully, with that surprising refinement off a notably hot northern Swartland vineyard (then very neglected; an old, mixed one, you’ll remember, with chenin, semillon, palomino and a bit of muscat). Interestingly, my dining partner, John, had had a bottle of the current 2018 at a restaurant just a week or so back, and confirmed the advantage of a decade of bottle age. A brilliant wine which would have had many years ahead of it if it hadn’t been sacrificed to our great pleasure that night….

Then a fine red burgundy, two years older: Méo-Camuzet Vosne Romanée Premier Cru les Chaumes 2007. Also surprisingly young, an excellent wine from a mixed vintage – fresh, graceful and lovely, with subtle depths and power revealing themselves increasingly with air, but almost too youthfully fruity for a perfect dinner companion.

I asked to see the Fyn wine list. It’s impressive in quality and breadth, largely local (though with a French handful), with many of the grandest Cape names represented. A smallish number are available by the glass. Most of the wines are from the current or last vintage, though there are a few mature ones – like Vilafonté Series C 2006 (R6000), Kanonkop Pinotage 2009 (R1800). It’s on the whole very expensive, with a 300% or more mark-up not unusual: Alheit Cartology 2018 for R950 is pretty outrageous, as is Sadie Columella 2016 at R2600 – trade price must have been around R600. Incidentally, the 2018 vintage of ‘T Voetpad is R1100 – and I noted that the winelist wrongly gives it as from Piketberg (it’s WO Swartland) and describes Kokerboom as a white blend (it’s semillon). Simple mistakes like that shouldn’t happen at a fine, serious restaurant, whatever the wine price. I don’t think there’s a sommelier, incidentally, to help sort out things like this and help justify the mark-up.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to get grumpy about paying that sort of price – and was content with the corkage – but I would have been. Dinner at Fyn costs a lot of money (they automatically add on 12.5% service charge, by the way, which is about as ungraceful as the R800 deposit demanded when booking) and I am happy to pay well for the brilliant, elaborate dinner and the good service and the place. But to charge massive markups for current-release wine is wrong. If the profit margin on the food is insufficient to be sustainable, by all means charge more for that and let us choose – but when you add scarcely any value to the wine, don’t make winedrinkers subsidise other diners.

I was pleased to see that Fyn was full, and reportedly always is. If you’re a visitor to Cape Town during the tourist season and want to eat at what is undoubtedly one of its most exciting restaurants (which is saying a lot), I think you might need to book well in advance. Grit your teeth about overpaying for the wine at Fyn, but the food and experience are worth every cent.

  • Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. He is a taster (and associate editor) for Platter’s. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.

Comments

9 comment(s)

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    GillesP | 2 October 2022

    R150 corkage is a bargain in this kind of restaurant. I wouldn’t blink twice at it. Given the sky high price of their wine list, I would stick to bringing my better wines for R150
    Only problem is I don’t like the food either.

    Matt Curson | 1 October 2022

    Looking forward to our visit to Fyn in December. Noticed a website showing wine menu as it seems many restaurants omit this and only show food menu.

    For me the wine is an important part of the dining so try to look in advance.

    When splashing out on a nice bottle, the 150 corkage is reasonable especially when mark up is twice retail it seems. Based on 1300 zar for storm pinot noir compared to 650 zar retail.

    If buying a 400 zar bottle that probably costs 200, the 150 corkage on own bottle brought is nearly wiping out any saving but would be nice to have the option especially for us tourists who may pick up a few bottles on their vineyard visits.

    As a note, La colombe where we are also dining do not allow corkage and charge more like 3 times for the storm pinot noir. I understand where the profit is made but I do feel there should be a limit for an item that is simply opened and poured. Our Vin de Constance had cork floating in it last time we were there!

      Tim James | 3 October 2022

      Matt, please note that this review is three years old. I don’t think they allow BYO any more. The food as marvellous as ever, though. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your visit.

        Matt Curson | 6 October 2022

        Oh thanks Tim. Didn’t notice that and from an accessibility perspective grey text always throws me (date was in grey)

        Shame as I was hoping to find and take a bottle of Damascene Semillon 2020. New vintages out end of this month I believe.

        I would really appreciate if someone, somewhere, had a current list of BYO friendly restaurants.

        At least now I will simply look for some nice wines to enjoy when we are relaxing at our various accomodations which I am sure we will pick up whilst in Cape Town and then onto Stellenbosch.

    weneedwine | 1 October 2019

    I’ve been fortunate enough to dine at Fyn twice within the last couple of months. Both times the experience was absolutely world class: service, food, presentation, ambiance & decor. I would suggest that serious foodies visit them asap, it won’t be long till it turns into the next Test Kitchen, where someone needs to leave you a reservation in their will, for you to be able to get in..

    As for the wine mark-ups, all the wines mentioned, are wines that sell on allocation or sell out so quick that you’ll have to buy all your stock upfront to be able to have them listed (It’s impressive in quality and breadth). This is a substantial financial commitment from the restaurant. Surely this entitles them to charge more than what is considered ‘usual’.
    The corkage is reasonable, if you take into account that the wine glasses (Spiegelau?) you drank from are way more than R150 a piece. If you BYO, you can’t comment on the wine service “value-added”, because you won’t get to experience it. Considering the above, if this was my restaurant, I would not allow BYO.

    Ashley Westaway | 30 September 2019

    Thanks Tim, for the article in general, but specifically for your commentary on the 2009 T-Voetpad. I’m surprised because I understood that the acidity was low in the first few bottlings of T-Voetpad. I certainly know that Skurfberg ages beautifully so I’m very happy to read your glowing review of the decade-old/ young T-Voetpad. What’s your experience of the ageability of Pofadder?

    Keith Prothero | 30 September 2019

    High mark ups are the norm in most restaurants especially in the U.K. I was told by a famous Michelin starred restaurant owner that if customers did not drink wine he would not make a profit. Most definitely the wine drinker subsidises the food . The rationale I was given in the U.K. is that most customers have not got a clue on the price of wine whereas they all know how much food costs !! Frankly I rarely go to any restaurant unless I can bring my own. At a fair corkage of course

    Duncan | 30 September 2019

    Automatic service charges should be standard at all restaurants and should be well above 12.5%

    Robert | 30 September 2019

    Hi Tim, please visit Terroir. Probably the best priced wine list out of the ‘serious’ restaurants. Also premium wines are first cellared before release. Think 2009 Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon at 1050. But I do acknowledge the Winelands vs Cape Town factor as a big influence.

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