Traditional meals make way for tasting menus at Bouillabaisse

By Jane Broughton - 2006

Sampling and sharing an array of flavours and tastes has never been more fashionable or as fun. Even superchef Gordon Ramsay tapped into the trend when he opened Maze in London last year, effectively reinventing the tasting menu as we know it, with mini-portions of haute cuisine.
Adding a seafood twist to this global trend is Bouillabaisse, an oyster, seafood and champagne bar in Franschhoek offering tasting portions of oysters, caviar, tuna sashimi, salmon, trout tartare, beer-infused mussels, fish wontons, grilled scallops and prawns to name a few.

Ordering the chef's selection of five seafood tasters is a clever way of trying something new and experimenting with unusual flavours. Or start with champagne and tasting spoons of Beluga with blini and crème fraîche, before trying the house speciality, bouillabaisse. Homemade sorbets in combos like ginger and lemongrass or lime and basil are all you need after such a feast. Chef Camil Haas (from the stylish Klein Oliphants Hoek guesthouse in Franschhoek) cooks confidently in an open kitchen, and despite the sophisticated interior, it's all delightfully informal and social.

By Kim Mawxwell - March 2006

* Menu and prices have changed since publication. Find out more about our latest menu

"This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is, a sort of soup or broth or brew, or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes," is an extract from the Ballad of Bouillabaisse, which appears on the menu welcoming you to Bouillabaisse Champagne & Oyster Bar and Seafood Deli in Franschhoek

It's a fitting name for a venue focusing on flavours and textures from the sea. But don't be fooled by the traditional boullabaisse label. Step inside this Franschhoek restaurant and with some imagination you're transported 20 metres under water to a scuba diver's lounge with milky white fish, sea anemones, surging ocean currents and sea-weed-green walls patterned with seagrasses. Except that here fish are fashioned in blown glass, wave-like glass panels imitate swell, and sea creatures are made of paper or fabric.
Yes, design is an integral part of both venue and menu. Fish scale patterns on wooden counter panelling are repeated in white fish leather accents on aubergine faux suede couches.

The first dining section is raised to afford direct views of front cooking, whereby a kitchen becomes part of the dining room. Chef Camil Haas and his team man the stations.
The mood is intimate in the second area, with ottomans, lower seating and dining tables. Striking light panels feature glass starfish in a variety of colours, while the contents of a Champagne and sparkling wine bar - Ingrid Haas' domain - are displayed behind blue glass.
Even the scullery - the third area - is open to view, displaying custom-made local ceramic dishes.

But on to food. Fans of Camil and Ingrid's delectable tasting menu dinners at their former Klein Oliphantshoek restaurant are accustomed to the finer details. At their new venue, food is focussed on sea produce, but execution is dramatically different. "The locals often say they'd love to eat extravagantly so we're doing seven-course tasting menus for R295 pp because we didn't want our customers to feel limited by budgets," explains Ingrid.

The menu offers flexibility in three price brackets. "People can order as much or as little as they want, at any stage, " explains Camil. There are 13 Tantalising Tasters at R27 - from ceviche-style pickled fish to fresh oysters served with a fermentedblack bean and sherry dressing and cucumber spaghetti. If chefs are left to do the creating, a selection of five tantalising tasters costs R120. Non-fishy tasters also have the R27 tag; from white bean cappuccino and truffle oil to oven-baked stuffed portabillini mushromms.
Moving to option two, 12 Sensational Tasters (R49 each) offer similar sizes with pricier ingredients. Signatures bouillabaisse soup has crayfish, and fries are paired with a half-kilo of mussels in Belgian beer. A platter selection is R225.
A notch up, the Menu Prestige featuresa la carte items. While the food focus was South African at Klein Oliphantshoek, Camil feels local palates are ready to "cross the border" to rare and exclusive imports - quality scallops, lava-grilled tiger prawns, veal medaillons with truffels, caviar, French cheeses and buffalo Mozarella served Caprese-style.
(...)

On the drinks menu, a range of Laurent-Perrier Champagne are a Franschhoek first, and Cap Classique options are varied. To keep things simple, wines by the carafe are preferred over a weighty wine list. The honed drinks policy sums up the overall aproach at Bouillabaisse. "We're happy to only serve customers an espresso, but can't serve a Coke as we don't stock it. We're flexible about options within our perimeters, but we want diners to experience something they can't get anywhere else."

WINE MAGAZINE - Escape Routes - A Series Reviewing Places that Deeply Please the Senses -

By Joy Franks - Feb 2007

Camil and Ingrid Haas not only run Franschhoek’s Résidence Klein Oliphants Hoek but the restaurant Bouillabaise in the gourmet capital’s main street as well. The latter came about after Camil’s cooking in the guest house kitchen saw them awarded a Blazon of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. Ingrid smiles at the recollection of having to gently remind wide-eyed couples that they still needed to place their own order.

No stranger to open kitchens, Belgian-born Camil had been cooking at Klein Oliphants Hoek’s woodfired stove for seven years when recently there was an opportunity to “come down into the town” and set up a new restaurant concept. Not that Résidence Klein Oliphants Hoek is by any means far away – the bottom of the garden borders the back of the main street and it is a five minute walk to Bouillabaisse – but the feel is very different to the Haas’s slick new establishment. Built in 1888 as a mission station (you can see the neighbouring church from the swimming pool) Résidence Klein Oliphants Hoek has eight en-suite rooms of varying size and degrees of luxury with features such as a massage shower or outdoor jacuzzi and in-season rates ranging from R350pp/night to R900pp/night.

Our accommodation in The Hidden Parish room (R700pp/night) was a homely mix of colonial and African décor with a fireplace, king-sized bed, spacious veranda with private plunge pool and cool cotton gowns. It just begs for an afternoon dedicated to the papers or a good book or lounging in the sun to the sound of a trickling water feature and taking the odd dip to cool off. (A great way to make it up to a neglected Beloved!) There’s no fridge in the room but someone is always around between 7am and 11pm to pour some fresh milk for your late afternoon Earl Grey or help with any other drinks wishes.

The highlight of the Escape with the Beloved was the evening meal at Bouillabaisse, but be warned, a booking could see your social skills fly out the window. Yet with ringside seats to all the open-fronted kitchen action at this buzzing Champagne and oyster bar it is, honestly, quite involuntary. You might find yourself gaping (as I did!), like the glowing glass blowfish lamps, at the artful arrangements placed before a fellow diner. Or fall out of conversation completely as your gaze remains transfixed by the well-trained dance of flipping, slicing and steaming that plays out at the very edge of your plate.

The idea is to set in motion (at your own pace) a stream of fish, seafood and non-sea-related ‘tasters’ and let waiters dispense expert advice on the appropriate bubbly to match (local or French). Think soft steam-basket fish and hot, puffy, crispy tempura prawns. Buoyed by the energy spilling out from the kitchen it’s easy to lean forward and ask the perlemoen’s provenance (four years old from a farm in Kleinmond) and chat to Andrew the pastry chef about his deeply dark chocolate cookies.

And it must be said that any etiquette faux pas can only be fortuitous. Lapsing into a stare alerted me to a most perfect piece of tender abalone, simply grilled with garlic and replaced in its pearly-sheen shell, an exact fit. Because I was engaged in an enthusiastic mutual appreciation, with the lady seated next to me, of the oysters in fermented black bean-sherry dressing matched with the Chamonix MCC we met Camil (he astutely stepped in to speak to my temporarily forsaken Beloved).

Next morning at the guest house, I sipped my tea on the ample stoep where breakfast is also served. It’s filled with tables and chairs, old church benches, sofas and sideboards and overlooks an enchanted garden of lollipop roses, fragrant lavender and herbs, curly arches and fluttering sugar birds. In the light of the morning sun it is easy to imagine what dining in this setting might have been like and I’ll always feel wistful for that era of Camil’s cooking which I have never known.