CNN shines spotlight on Cape Town’s flourishing culinary scene

Cape Town is soon to be featured on CNN’s prestigious Culinary Journeys series come mid October (see times and channels below). The show that celebrates world cuisine by exploring a different destination every month, aims to highlight the multitude of cultural and food traditions in different regions all over the world.

Producer of the series – Gisella Deputato told Food24, “We’ve been all over the place – from Europe, talking to chefs like René Redzepi and Massimo Bottura to Bangkok and Lima, where we followed Virgilio Martinez, who is doing some absolutely amazing things so we like to travel to places that have a strong spirit of food and hospitality… and we know that braai is a big thing in South Africa that brings everyone together”.

CNN is currently in Cape Town this week to follow our own celeb chef and well-known food personality, Reuben Riffel.

“It will end in a celebration of sorts so we will go and explore different areas of Cape Town  – like Bo Kaap and even the winelands where we will talk to Renata Coetzee at Solms Delta about all the indigenous edible herbs and plants that can be used in cooking”, says Deputato. “When I researched it, I began to realise that there are so many layers to South African food and food traditions”.

Food24 received the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes with CNN on Day 1 and Day 2 of shooting.

Day 1
Day one started off at The One&Only Cape Town with a few scenes of scenery – where the crew went up to the famous Noon Gun above Bo Kaap to get shots of Reuben overlooking the city. It was a wonderfully sunny day with Cape Town showing off and the jaw-dropping beauty of Camps Bay couldn’t be left out of the footage!

Today we spent some time behind the scenes of @cnntravel ‘s Culinary Journey series. They’re filming a food series on Cape Town which will be aired in October. The star of the show is the lovely Reuben Riffell. Follow us for the next few days to see what Reuben gets up to! #CNNFood #CapeTownFood #Heritage #SouthAfricanFood #capecuisine

A photo posted by Food24_sa (@food24_sa) on Sep 11, 2016 at 9:36am PDT

Day 2

Day 2 of Culinary Journeys with Reuben Riffel entailed a trip to Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants in Woodstock, their main hub. A very relaxed yet fast paced morning saw the filming of a scene in which Reuben would come and choose some meat for the climatic braai that would be shot at the end of the week.

Scenes included a chat with the resident butcher regarding a lamb in the hanging room, an ordering over the counter of sausages, biltong and other quality meats, and a less appealing scene of the slicing of a rack of ribs on the electric bone saw. Throughout the morning, Reuben’s ease and ability to improvise was evident, and we’ve come to expect this approach from one of SA’s favourite celebrity chefs.

If you haven’t been to Frankie Fenner and you love a good steak or other meat variety, then do. The meat is all grass fed and is ethically reared as much as possible, which shows in the texture and colour of the cuts. It is worth the extra bit of money you spend because the value of conscious meat eating is infinite.

Watch our video that sums up day 2:

Captured on Snapchat…

READ: Food24 visits 2 of Cape Town’s newest hotspots

WATCH Cape Town in CNN Culinary Journeys on DSTV Channel 401

Thursday, 20 October at 1030 SAST
Friday, 21 October at 0530 SAST
Saturday, 22 October at 0630 SAST and 1530 SAST
Saturday, 29 October at 1330 SAST
Sunday, 30 October at 0530 SAST
Monday, 31 October at 0400 SAST

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