Working in the restaurant industry means long hours, intense services, and little downtime. For Teenola Govender and Geoffrey Abrahams, co-head chefs from COY Restaurant, an Eat Out two-starred restaurant at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, making time for each other outside of their work requires intention. Enter their weekly date nights.  

The pair have mastered the art of leaving work at work, creating intentional moments where meals become about catching up, connecting and caring for each other beyond the demands of restaurant life. Whether it’s going all out for breakfast – bacon, eggs, hash browns, Teenola’s epic curried beans, and great coffee – or sitting down for dinner, it’s about presence, partnership, and making time count when there’s precious little of it. 

Watch as Teenola and Geoffrey invite us to experience one of these date nights and show us how they decide who does the dishes…  

 

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We chatted with Teenola and Geoffrey to find out more about the role food plays in their lives…

The restaurant industry can be intense and demanding. How do you prioritise and maintain a meaningful relationship with each other, as well as with family and friends, outside of the restaurant kitchen?
With each other, it’s important to keep work at work as much as possible so that when we get home it’s about us. Obviously, it spills over every now and then, but we make a determined effort to not make being chefs our entire personality. With our friends and families, we make the effort to see them as often as possible on our off days. Making up for days or special occasions we’ve missed. Family plays a massive role in our lives. We aren’t too cool to be with our families. 

What strategies have you found most effective for staying connected despite the long hours?
Any issues we have at work, we try our best to not let it affect our personal lives. Since our periods of downtime are so few and far between, we make the time spent together count. And we make sure we have a date night at least once a week. 

How does food play a role in caring for the ones you love?
We both grew up with food playing a massive role every time our families got together. The conversation was always, “Who’s bringing what?” Events were always over-catered because the mindset was to provide too much rather than too little. Giving leftovers to take home is a must. 

After a busy service or particularly stressful day in the restaurant, what are your go-to methods for unwinding and mentally stepping away from the culinary world? Most importantly, leave work at work. Debrief or decompress the day and leave it at work as much as possible. Also allow yourself the time to be off. Too often burnout and overworking are glorified and rest is regarded as weakness. We allow ourselves the time off to mentally shut down. Often that means getting out of CPT for a bit. 

When you sit down together for meal, how is the meal about more than just the food you’re eating?
As previously said, the time spent together is so little that when we do sit down and have a meal together, it is very intentional. Whether we’ve gone out or made it ourselves, we make sure the time is very focused on catching up with each other. Especially non-work-related things. The days are so busy that it’s easy to miss if one of us is going through something.  

Who does the cooking when you’re together outside of the restaurant? Or is it always a joint venture?
Whoever initiates a particular meal is the person who cooks. However, it’s always a joint effort. If the one cooks, the other cleans. It’s never an argument. We couldn’t allow the other person to do everything. It’s not fair. 

What’s your favourite thing to cook for each other?
Breakfast. We always go really big for brekkie. All the effort. Bacon, eggs, hash browns, Tee’s epic curried beans, great coffee. It’s our effort meal of the day. The perfect way for us to start a day.