Favourite Restaurant: Fork

On Tuesday I went out for dinner with two lovely friends of mine, (THE most adorable married couple I’ve ever met, doesn’t hurt that they are very young as well) to one of my utmost favourite restaurants, Fork in Long Street. Skeptically, the general reaction is usually, ‘Really? In Long Street?’, well little do people know, this is a gem. The freshness of the ingredients and the intensity of the flavours is right on par with some of the best food I’ve been blessed to taste in places like Paris and the general Provence area of the South of France. The actual cuisine borrows its serving style from Spain, tapas comes from the word ‘tapa’ which means ‘to cover’. In the southern province of Andalusia, wine bars would use a saucer to cover the top of the wine to keep fruit flies away from the wine, and the saucer would carry some min bites of food to be enjoyed with the wine, soon this became a phenomenon and wine bars began to use these titbits of food to define themselves and people would come to the wine bar with the best tapas. At the Fork the focus is on contemporary Tapas, an evolution of the old and still existing Spanish ways, a spirit of sharing smaller plates of food, and a culinary sensation of experiencing different tastes all in the same meal. The concept promotes having fun, experimenting, sharing, eating and enjoying some good wine with friends, acquaintances and business colleagues without the formality of one large plate of food. Fork has adopted the Spanish idea, combined it with different South African ingredients and flavours, while employing the best of Europe’s food preparation techniques. The décor is very perfectly stripped down, a ‘rustic’ naked brick wall, dark woods and low lighting, sorta New York. Everyone’s I’ve taken here as been blown away, even the ones that were doubtful of the location.