What is it that separates truly remarkable chefs from the rest? Is it top training and experience, how they source, prepare and cook ingredients, or is it their insatiable drive to break new ground? We find out as we take a snapshot of the experts in chef’s whites at the twenty restaurants nominated for the Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards Top 10.

Azure: Henrico Grobbelaar
Claim to fame: the winner of the San Pellegrino Cooking Cup in Italy in 2009, Henrico has taken the menu in a creative new direction this year. The fun, inventive menu plays on solid French dishes like lamb ‘from head to tail’.

Babel: Simone Rossouw
Claim to fame: a menu inspired by a spectacular garden, where a vast array of veggies grow. Salads are famously categorised by colour, rather than ingredient.

Bosman’s: Roland Gorgosilich
Claim to fame: contemporary classic French cuisine with hints of Austrian heritage. You can still get a guéridon (flambée trolley) delivered to your table here.

DW Eleven-13: Marthinus Ferreira
Claim to fame: his ingredients are the star. Having trained under Franck Dangereux of the Food Barn and Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck, Marthinus turns out amazing sauces, and bold, fresh flavours. The restaurant also does all its own smoking and curing.

The Greenhouse: Peter Tempelhoff
Claim to fame: the perfectly manicured fish tasting menu and chef’s tasting menu shine here. Peter’s cooking is also influenced by techniques and ingredients from Japan, a country he’s visited, along with New York and France.

Hartford House: Jackie Cameron
Claim to fame: legendary soups and amazing meat dishes, made using the produce of the Midlands. Expect Midlands cheeses, as well as local beef, rabbit and trout.

Jordan Restaurant: George Jardine
Claim to fame: a celebration of provenance of ingredients. George is experimenting with pickling, curing and smoking, and is also a proponent of foraging.

La Colombe: Scot Kirton
Claim to fame: A celebration of forgotten cuts as well as classic French ingredients like foie gras and truffles.

Mosaic at Orient: Chantel Dartnall
Claim to fame: pretty, delicate ‘fairy food’. The restaurant’s spring menu has a botanical slant, with plenty of herbs and flowers.

Nobu: Hideki Maeda
Claim to fame: this Japanese chef turns out spectacular seafood at Nobu. Expect exotic combinations like octopus carpaccio with apple sorbet, and eel mousse fish cake served in a bonito broth.

Overture: Bertus Basson
Claim to fame: simple food where the ingredient is king, and nothing is lost. “When we wake up in the morning we don’t know what we’re going to be cooking that day,” says Bertus.  It’s that fresh.

Pierneef à La Motte: Chris Erasmus
Claim to fame: Chris spends a great deal of time poring over ancient diaries in high Dutch and reinvigorating historical Cape cuisine, with dishes like beef cheeks and lamb soup.

Planet Restaurant: Rudi Liebenberg
Claim to fame: giving hotel dining a seriously good name. Rudi turns out clean, modern food. “Eight years ago I wanted the food to be pretty; now it’s about the journey. If I treat the ingredient with respect and cook it well, it will look good.”

The Restaurant at Grande Provence: Darren Roberts
Claim to fame: a chef with great wisdom and experience – he’s been in the kitchen 31 years – Darren nevertheless produces modern food with on-trend flavours.

Roots Restaurant: Allistaire Lawrence
Claim to fame: big, balanced flavours with plenty of playful dishes, like a smoking amuse bouche. Foie gras, asparagus, celeriac, all kinds of offal and seasonal fruit are some of Allistaire’s key ingredients.

The Roundhouse: PJ Vadas and Eric Bulpitt
Claim to fame: this dynamic duo take foraging to a whole new level. Dishes that emerge from the kitchen at the Roundhouse burst with bold new flavours. Never tasted a pickled nasturium berry or a pickled elderflower? Time for a visit!

The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français: Margot Janse
Claim to fame: constantly exploring new ideas. Margot delivers South African storytelling on a plate. Currently offering a nine-course surprise tasting menu, Margot and her team are trying out new cuts and ingredients. Right now, they’re experimenting with fermentations of all manner of ingredients, from grains to garlic.

Terroir: Michael Broughton
Claim to fame: self-taught Michael Broughton is a whizz with sauces, colours, and is also famous for his slow-cooked pork belly.

The Test Kitchen: Luke Dale-Roberts
Claim to fame: his beautiful plating and use of plates. With no cold room, all the food is made fresh on the day. As the name suggests, you can expect inspired flavour combinations like liquorice and liver. The 2008 winner of Eat Out’s Chef of the Year Award is slowly popularising sweetbreads.

Tokara: Richard Carstens
Claim to fame: classic French cuisine, a Japanese approach to seasonality, and Spanish innovation. Richard, the 2005 winner of Eat Out Chef of the Year Award, also produces magical desserts.

By Katharine Jacobs, with Abigail Donnelly