South Africa’s very own Wolfgat in Paternoster was announced as Restaurant of the Year at the inaugural World Restaurant Awards in Paris this February.
The foraging-focused eatery also took home the award for best restaurant in the Off-Map Destination category.
Chef Kobus van der Merwe joined some of the world’s best chefs to celebrate game-changing restaurants in the global restaurant industry at the event.
The restaurant, which is housed in a converted 130-year-old fisherman’s beach cottage in Paternoster offers one of the best, most untouched views in the country and is praised for a menu that is built freshness and locality.
“If mother nature erected a sign saying ‘build restaurant here’, it would surely point to Wolfgat. Chosen from all the inspected big plates, our inaugural Restaurant of the Year is a small, remote haven of purity and good taste in every sense,” reads the World Restaurant Awards website.
Kobus says in his video below: “Wolfgat is intrinsic to it’s environment, and we can only collect things you can find in these parts”.
Its six mostly female staff had no formal training when the restaurant opened just two years ago in a cave on the beach at Paternoster.
“I’m really proud to bring something like this back to our continent and beautiful country. I’m very proud to be working in a team of mostly women.” Sustainable and treading softly on Earth with a very long term view indeed.
Watch this beguiling video – or come and visit South Africa to find out for yourself. That would be your reward.
Some words by EatOut.co.za, images courtesy of Wolfgat and Wanted