Sometimes the path your life takes is a bit like joining the dots. Last week I had lunch with successful restaurateur Ken Forrester and his team as they celebrated the 15th birthday of Ken’s restaurant 96 Winery Road, near Somerset West.

Ken makes it quite clear that the restaurant focuses on consistency and customer favourites, such as peppercorn fillet and truffle chips, rather than following trends.

‘It’s just delicious food,’ he says, and cooked with care and generosity, I add.

We started with a fresh and delicious Caesar salad and a pan of silky mussels in gently curried cream. And then I waited with bated breath to see if it would happen. To my delight, it did. The famous duck and cherry pie arrived at the table, the one I first tried back in the 80s. It was just the same as I remembered, slow-cooked, rich duck with sweet cherries encased in buttery pastry.

Ken Forrester and his family used to own a fabulous restaurant called Gatrilles in Joburg’s CBD, of which I have very fond memories. The only dot that I hadn’t connected in the story was that the name 96 Winery Road didn’t, as I thought, refer to the street address of the restaurant, but rather to the year in which the restaurant opened – 1996.

We toasted Ken with his signature Chenin Blanc (which is now sporting a new label) and wished him many more successful years on Winery Road.

Abi