With less than a week to go till the opening of Reuben Riffel's new restaurant at the luxury Cape Town hotel, One&Only, we caught up with the award-winning chef to see how things are going.

Your food won Sol Kerzner's stamp of approval. How did it feel to be chosen by him to head up a restaurant in his hotel?

To be honest, it was a bit unreal and I felt quite flabbergasted. Initially I wasn't completely sure whether my food would be suited to the hotel, which is why I took so long to agree to come on board. That said, it was also very flattering to be asked.

Reuben's at the One&Only is officially launching soon. How are the preparations going?

Since the 15th of September I've been playing around with new dishes and serving it to staff and a few people from Cape Town. People definitely seem to have their favourites.

The décor will sadly not be completely overhauled because I only agreed to the project at the last minute. It's happening in phases and being done by the same decorator who did my restaurants in Franschhoek and Robertson.

Is your new restaurant going to be very different to the existing ones in Franschhoek and Robertson?

I'm definitely not reinventing the wheel. It's still all about unfussy, local food made with the best produce around. I'm quite excited about building up a new base of Cape Town suppliers and being able to source ingredients with more ease. Other than you might think, produce isn't always so easy to come by in Franschhoek.

A huge advantage to opening up the restaurant in the One&Only is that the kitchen is equipped to a tee, and I've inherited a team of skilled chefs.

Can you let us in on a few dishes that are going to star on the new menu?

For starters, you can expect the likes of white asparagus salad with prawns, botargo (tuna roe) and a soya lemon dressing, a warm salad of pickled veal tongue with a sweet and sour mustard-caper dressing, and our 'Pretoria' salad with beef biltong, green chilli and blue cheese.

Mains wise there'll be lamb curry with mint chutney and pineapple jogurt, quail stuffed with grapes and parsnip puree, peri-peri offall and the Franschhoek favourite, pork belly.

The dessert menu will have eats like malva pudding with clotted cream ice cream.

Gordon Ramsay's Maze ultimately failed in pulling in the customers. How do you plan to magnatise diners to Reuben's at One&Only?

South African diners like to feel that they are getting value for money. They don't mind paying the price if the quality is good. I don't think South Africans felt that they got as much as they payed for at Maze, and I think they found the restaurant a bit alienating.

I hope to secure a loyal following by making Capetonians feel proud of the amazing space and give them a sense of ownership. It'll also be a much more convenient dining option for people who feel like Reuben's but don't have the time to drive through to Franschhoek or Robertson.

How are you going to juggle your time between all three restaurants? Aren't you afraid of burnout?

I've realised that I actually have more control when I stand back a little and let people do the jobs they've been appointed to do.

I wouldn't be able to do any of it without the help of my friends. Chef Camil Haas is looking after Reuben's in Franschhoek, and I've appointed Maritz Jacobs as the head chef at the One&Only. He's a great guy and has more or less the same style as me, but with a slightly different flair, which I encourage. It's quite weird to be the only two people that can speak Afrikaans in the kitchen!