Larger portions for Afrikaners @ One&Only

A handy tip to beat the recession from an unlikely source: Tatler, 300 year old glossy magazine for Trinnys and Susannahs. When ordering at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze or Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s Nobu at the Cape Town One&Only, do so in Afrikaans to qualify for “hilariously big portions to cope with the Afrikaner appetite.” A handy tip from Tatler’s Travel Guide 2010. Patrons speaking English at Nobu get servings like the one below. Clearly no laughing matter.

English dish at Nobu

English dish at Nobu

The Travel Guide is billed as listing “101 best hotels in the world” but there are actually only 100 as the One&Only appears twice: on page 32 and again on page 66 in an entry which should win some kind of award for travel writing. It starts off “There’s a frisky insider crowd in Cape Town hanging out on the pavements of De Waterkant discussing design – not exactly obvious One&Only recruits. And yet you’ll find them all here at the massive bar, busily drinking Don Pedros [sic].”

I’m betting Trinny thought De Waterkant was Afrikaans for The Waterfront but to expect a denizen of Cape Town’s stylish gay ghetto to drink Dom Pedro, a seventies cocktail, is simply de trop. Quite how the One&Only made the top 100 is moot as Nobu and Maze are labeled “strong if not exactly original” but they do “focus, properly hard, on securing its African roots.”

Freud would have a field day but do come again (oops!) Susannah. Since when does importing two international restaurant franchises take you back to your African roots? And to claim that “the staff, the art, the lotions and potions, the uniforms, the general manager – are all local” is simply a fib. One&Only GM when the story appeared was Frenchman Gérard Sintès (since replaced by cockney Tony Romer-Lee) while the F&B manager is German Kent Scheermeyer.

But then facts are not the strong suit of the Tatler which thinks that Lesotho is “the only place in Southern Africa you can ski.” Tell that to Tiffindell, Trinny!