Chef-restaurateurs Anouchka Horn and Neil Swart, the pair behind Eat Out 2-star restaurant Belly of the Beast and Galjoen, are set to open their new collaborative project, Seebamboes, on 7 March.  

Directly translated from “sea bamboo” (a kelp that’s native to South Africa, grows up to 12m tall, and is a vital part of the Great African Seaforest visible around Cape Town), Seebamboes will be an intimate dining space on the mezzanine level above Galjoen. Horn and Swart have partnered with chef Adél Hughes and artist Liebet Jooste to develop a tasting-menu experience that “riffs on gastronomic nostalgia in a contemporary reimagining of what ‘surf and turf’ can be. And what it should be: playful, celebratory, delicious.”

 

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Horn and Swart want to explore more creative ways of combining land and sea, and hope to take a more nuanced, experimental, and most importantly, delicious approach when it comes to developing the menu so that the term “surf and turf” brings to mind more than just steak and calamari.   

“If ‘surf and turf’ has had a bad rap, it’s because it’s been badly executed in the past,” says Swart. “It was always these obvious combinations, like steak and calamari, or steak and prawns, often quite unflatteringly prepared.” 

“We’ve always been very passionate about ‘surf and turf’,” says Horn. “We want to take that nostalgia aspect and flip it around, creating something new with it. Not necessarily a big piece of fish and a big piece of meat together on a plate. It might also be seaweed with meat, or a mix of seaweeds with land vegetables. Because vegetables are also turf, right?” 

“Rather than any usual surf and turf combinations, we’re coming in from the side and creating unanticipated flavours,” Hughes says. “We’re unlikely to do a straight steak and calamari, but at some stage, I do want to create a pairing of chokka and trinchado.” 

Jooste, who will manage the restaurant, says they’re effectively ‘deconstructing’ surf and turf, “elevating everything from the land and from the sea in its own right as well.” 

Adél Hughes (head chef), Anouchka Horn (owner), Liebet Jooste (FOH manager).

The interiors 

Seating consists of high tables and tall chairs and the design scheme is simple, clean and sophisticated to ensure that all the focus is on the food. Embodying the same playful spirit as the menu, the interiors feature an impermanent “wall of curiosities” that is made up of treasures picked up from the beach and the veld. Reclaimed glass embedded with sea sand has also been incorporated and together with a colour palette inspired by sea bamboo bring to mind the shoreline – the in-between space between land and sea.  

With space for only 16 diners – at a push – the restaurant will be incredibly intimate, but comfortable. “We don’t like big restaurants, so the size is perfect for us,” says Swart. 

To make a reservation, visit seebamboescpt.co.za.