In the latest issue of Eat Out Magazine, food historian Hetta van Deventer-Terblanche takes you on a fascinating journey through the origins of South Africa’s restaurant industry. Learn how it all began and evolved into the vibrant food scene we know today.

We make a fuss of anniversaries. Perhaps it’s got to do with the temporary nature of earthly things, but we’ll leave that riddle to the philosophers to solve. Still, landmark moments are a reminder of something greater than us; a measure of a life well lived. Twenty-five years ago – let’s pause for a moment to acknowledge the fact that we’re talking about a quarter of a century here – there was no organisation that took it upon itself to shine a light on South Africa’s incredible culinary talent. If we’d had a Michelin Guide, this country’s restaurants would have ranked among the best in the world by any international standards. And so, Eat Out was born, ushering in a new status quo whereby our country’s top chefs and restaurateurs would get the recognition they deserved. A landmark indeed… But in truth, the history of the South African restaurant has landmark moments in spades.

Image: Hanfred Rauch, Styling: Bianca Jones.

According to most contemporary dictionary definitions, the word “restaurant” originates in the early 19th century, and simply refers to a place where meals are served to customers – a place to eat. It is evident that, even though it might have been under a different name, eateries emerged long before the 19th century, nourishing hungry travellers and thirsty sailors, and providing a restorative meal for those far from home. The modern European restaurant concept was conceived in the second half of the 17th century, an era when dramatic changes took place in the culinary traditions of Western Europe. The somewhat homogeneous medieval culinary culture, for 1 300 years influenced by the philosophy of Hippocrates – and consequently the ecclesiastical dietary teachings of the Roman Catholic church – evolved radically. Renaissance art and academic culture flourished, and a new bourgeoisie middle class took shape. By the 18th century, the medieval guilds disappeared forever, as did the strict control by authorities that permitted only guild members to prepare and sell certain foodstuffs. (For example, only rôtisseurs had been allowed to roast and sell meat.)

Coffee shops and cafés became public meeting places for intellectuals and artists, and developed into spaces where food and drinks were served, newspapers read and card games played. Cultural historian Rebecca Spang traced the origins of the refined restaurant concept back to 18th- century Parisian eating culture, where the food served was sophisticated, and patrons could choose what they ate, when they ate and the price of the menu. Spang proposes the inventor of the restaurant was Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau in 1766, concentrating on a single dish – a bouillon (broth). In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the restaurant table was set for gastronomy to blossom, with trained and experienced chefs, previously employed by the aristocracy, available to work in public restaurants. The way the world had functioned for centuries – where good food was reserved for the wealthy who could afford to pay a chef and kitchen staff – was abandoned, making way for a new middle class, where sophistication could be celebrated around the dinner table by all. Cape Town was the birthplace of the first public eating houses on home soil. Names of taphuise, taverns, alehouses, inns and boarding houses – such as De Roode Os, Het Witte Paard and Het Swart Duifje – still linger in surviving documents…

To read the full feature, grab your copy of the 2024 Eat Out magazine – on shelf at your nearest Woolies and select stores for R115.