Saffron Restaurant at Abalone House

Food:

Innovative dishes from the kitchen of executive chef Darren Stewart revisit classic West Coast ingredients in a modern European style. A dash of hollandaise lifts a traditional (if over-salty) snoek kedgeree, while a waterblommetjie salad goes up-market with Parma ham and truffle dressing. It’s exciting, yet comfortable cuisine, perhaps best enjoyed via the six-course tasting menu.

Wine:

The extensive list covers some of South Africa’s top estates, with a good selection by the glass to encourage experimentation. French bubbly is on offer too.

Service:

Excellent service from the hosts make this a fine dining experience without the fuss or fawning.

Ambience:

Easily the most up-market option in Paternoster. Expect high-backed chairs, elegant stemware, damask tablecloths and crystal chandeliers.

And...:

Arrive early for a drink in the quirky bar, with its tasselled lamps, stuffed ‘bokkie’ and wide selection of aperitifs. (RH, October 2011)

Natalie Bossenger
20-Feb-2012

Venue stunning - both outside at the pool and indoors in the bar. Dining area also very good - both areas. However the meal did not stand up to the same standard unfortunately. Quantity painfully small - the starter of waldorf salad that I was served was so minute I could not even spare my husband a taste - what was served was really good though. The main meal that we were really looking forward to - that is the seafood stew with saffron potatoes, was served with raw spaghetti potatoes on the top. My husband was initially happy when seeing the dish delivered as he thought it was actual pasta - however it turned out to be potato which was raw and crunchy - a real let down to the meal. Just boiled potatoes would have been good with the stew.

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Pieter Reichert
15-Feb-2012

Valentines nightmare - only way to describe the meal last night at Saffron! What was supposed to be a really romantic 7 course meal turned out to be a disaster with a chef clearly trying to impress missing the plot by a mile! Starting from a cold watermelon and mint soup for starter, which tasted just like sugar water with mint, which is horrible by the way, to the next course which was the sweetest sorbet I ever tasted, followed by 2 beautiful oysters which unfortunately was screwed up again with a horrible sweet concoction. Then what was supposed to be an inside-out beef Wellington was just another piece of fillet with one broccoli stick, followed by something I can only describe as the worst sorbet ever, yup this time all the lemon went into it whcih was forgotten before accompanied by the worst bread crumbs ever plus to make it worse it was all floating around in a very large plate so was near impossible to try and eat, not that I wanted to. Then the dessert, yet another attempt at being fancy which went horribly wrong. So chef, you can cook, but please remember that your paying patrons want to be able to eat and enjoy food, not just look at it, and at R295 per head excluding drinks we expect just that - superb food!

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