Average grub, expensive vino at Grub & Vine

 14 August 2021

 

GRUB & VINE

103 Bree Street, Cape Town

The wife knows, amongst many other things, about wine and when she comments adversely on the egregiously high wine prices on a restaurant’s wine list, declaring that much as she would like to have a drink, she isn’t prepared to max out our flexi bond to do so, you should know there’s an issue here that mere reason cannot resolve.

The fam (the wife and I, the goddaughters and respective romantic interests) were at Grub & Vine for a pre-celebration of the birthday of the younger goddaughter’s significant other and, obviously, one wants to imbibe some modicum of social lubricant.

Apparently, the most budget friendly option on the wine list is Spider Pig Rosé, at R285,00 a bottle. When the three wine drinkers of our group wanted to order a second bottle of this splendid libation, it was out or stock. On reflection, this was not truly surprising, as chances were that more than one other table in the full restaurant probably also ordered it. The R75,00 glass of red wine the wife ordered instead, was no longer available either, and she took the next best option (a Mourvèdre from The Wine Thief) at R95,00 for about 100ml; no steal, despite the label on the bottle. 

I don’t normally dwell on wine prices because they’re meaningless to me and I’m quite aware that it’s more expensive to buy wine at a restaurant than at, say, your local quality supermarket, but the wine list at Grub & Vine dominated the conversation at our table for longer than it ought to have.

The wine drinkers fulminated at length about the absurdly expensive wines and, apparently, “egregious” is a very apt word in the circumstances. The average price of wine is north of R400 a bottle and there are few options for wine by the glass.

I can understand why some diners tip only on the value of food and not on the total bill including drinks. Imagine, at Grub & Vine, paying more for a bottle of wine than for a meal. 

As soon as our group had assembled, the sharply suited sommelier came to offer us a bottle of bubbly to kick off the festivities, cagily omitting any mention of price. Wise to the wicked ways of the world, we told him we’d think about it and then checked the price on the wine list. It is an eye-watering, jaw dropping, forehead slapping (and other similar clichés) R500 for a local sparkling wine, not even champagne. No wonder he didn’t think it necessary to mention the price when he offered the plonk. Suffice to say, our sparkling personalities was the only bubbliness at our table. 

It was the first time the fam had gathered like this since an outing to ëlgr in Kloof Street earlier this year, but even if we were in a festive mood, we weren’t reckless with our expenditure. The wine drinkers shared the bottle of Spider Pig (Don’t the creators of The Simpsons have copyright on this?), I had two shots of the only scotch on the drinks list (Loch Lomond, at R65 a shot; no, I’d never heard of it either), the younger goddaughter had a very sweet cocktail and the significant other who wasn’t celebrating his birthday drank two And Union IPAs at R45 per 330 ml.

Perhaps I’m spending too much time  and space on ranting about the liquor prices at Grub & Vine but they did somewhat sour the otherwise good time. We could have been chatting about  celebrity gossip instead of googling what the wines cost online, educational as that was.

Grub & Vine offers a winter special menu of R295 for two courses and R395 for three courses. This sounds like a deal until you see that sides (bread & butter R45, arancini R60, seasonal vegetables R50 and bone marrow mash R55) are an additional cost and are told that dessert forms no part of one’s two or three courses.

I had no intention of eating dessert anyway, because the three options were not appealing but, frankly, why would I pay R110 for sticky toffee pudding?  Madeleines with Chantilly cream are R95 and the cheese board is R125. 

Yes, so, if you eat a couple of courses, have at least one side and a dessert, and let’s not forget the alcohol, the winter special menu is no longer such a deal. Restauranteurs aren’t dummies and there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Okay, then, let’s get to the more positive stuff, as one must always find and accentuate the positive. Allegedly. 

Grub & Vine is at the top of a steep, white-tiled staircase and when you reach the top level you can turn immediately right to enter Culture wine bar, or left to Grub & Vine and pass the restroom and the open kitchen to the dining space beyond.

The room is not very large and I would hazard a guess that not too many tables were removed to accommodate social distancing. It felt crowded. Fortunately, the acoustics were such that there was no noise issue. There is banquette seating against the far wall but otherwise the chairs at the dark glass topped tables look like modernised bentwood chairs with rattan seats and backrests. Quite elegant. A slightly jarring, retro chic (I suppose) bohemian touch is candles stuck into the necks of wine bottles encrusted with thick layers of solidified wax drippings.  This is an affectation I recall from the low budgie restaurants I frequented back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s  when a candle in a bottle seemed so …creative. I’d never thought I’d see the return of this charming table decoration.

The room is nicely decorated and has the comfy feel of a  sophisticated bistro. 

All of us ordered from the three course menu; no-one ordered a  side or dessert. There are three starters, three “middles” and three mains. Oh, yes, the other kicker: if you want to eat the grass fed beef as your main, you must find an additional R125,00 in the dinner budget.

Our amuse bouche was one mildly amusing  mushroom arancini ball each.  No bread for the table; oh, wait a minute, I could order my own portion of bread for R45,00. Well, no.

The starter dish of quail scotch egg was not available and its replacement was gnocchi.  More than one of us had been keen on the scotch egg and its removal from our list of options crushed our souls.

Three ordered the gnocchi, the younger goddaughter ordered the roasted onion soup and the elder goddaughter and I had the shallot tarte tatin with whipped goats cheese and apple.

The gnocchi dish comprised of three gnocchi, two butternut or pumpkin balls and another sliver of vegetable. The dish wasn’t served warm enough, was spartan yet tasted okay. A start but not a great start.

The onion soup had a creamy texture and good depth of flavour, and the goddaughter raved about the superb mini brioche bun.

The tarte tatin was serviceable but lacked any pop of big flavour.

My middle course was the beetroot cured Franschhoek trout with horseradish crème fraiche and capers. The wife had the shellfish tortellini with cauliflower purée, stuffed cauliflower and prawn velouté and someone had the pumpkin risotto with crispy pumpkin seeds, pickled sprouts and Parmesan. 

Other than that I can’t recall what the spread of dishes in our group was.

The two tortellini on the plate were also just okay, somewhat bland, actually. 

In my trout dish, the fish was, well, trout, there was no discernible horse radish on the plate and the very  salty capers bullied the other, more subtle, elements. I guess the risotto was also okay; there was no complaint.

So far, so just about good enough.

The line fish of the day was silverfish, a fish I’m not familiar with and I passed. Possibly not the best decision. Like four others, I ordered the pork belly with smoked parsnip purée, roasted parsnip and walnut. Only the younger goddaughter, with the brash optimism of relative youth,  was prepared to pay the R125 surcharge for the beef fillet, with fondant sweet potatoes, sweet potato purée and beef jus.

The said fillet (and now that I think about it, how outrageous is it to demand an additional sum of money for an item on your winter “special” menu?) was overcooked, to the goddaughter’s specification, yet still tender and succulent. She said that the jus was overly salty and not very pleasant and that the vegetable component was scant. For the life of me I couldn’t see how this dish justified the surcharge.

The wife liked her pork belly very much, with succulent meat, deeply rich sauce and lovely, and plenty, parsnip elements. Me, not so much. I eat a lot of pork belly and I know a good one when I encounter it; the meat on my plate wasn’t it. Some of it was succulent but halfway through it was stringy, dry and flavourless, rescued only by the admittedly great sauce, exactly what one needs to enhance pork belly. I also didn’t notice any smokiness in the parsnip purée.  So, I don’t know why the wife was favoured with her belly and I wasn’t. My standards are too high?

Oh, the crackling. It didn’t crackle and was simply undercooked skin with that mystifying combination of crisp and chewy at the same time.  

And that was pretty much that. Some of our party expressed the intention of indulging in McFlurries at the McDonalds on the way home and the wife and I had mini Magnums waiting for us.

The total bill came to R3137,00 before tip (we’d been required to make an upfront payment of R150,00 per person), which we shared amongst ourselves, seeing as how all the young ‘uns are gainfully employed now, and in the end the wife and I paid R1200,00 for our meal. As “specials” go, and for what we received, it  was hardly value for money.

We had a good time in a lovely venue, ate decent, well-prepared though unremarkable food and drank less than we might otherwise have done.  After this experience, though, I wouldn’t recommend Grub & Vine to anyone, and certainly not without the caveat regarding the cost of drinks, because the food is at the level where there is no real fault and also no real praise. There’s no wow factor.

No wait, one does go “Oh, wow!” when you check the wine list.