Bouchon: Highly rated, small plated

 6 October 2023

 

BOUCHON

95 Hout Street, Cape Town

 

Bouchon is an old faithful, like Saigon still and like Anatoli used to be pre-Covid, that we’ve been to regularly since about 2015 and where we’ve always eaten extraordinarily well in one of the most atmospheric  restaurant settings in Cape Town.

 

Tonight was no exception.

 

We took the goddaughters, apparently for the first time since 2016, for the tapas special of R265,00 for three plates.  

 

Tonight, we were restrained, ordered three plates each, the burrata for the table and a fifth special for three desserts. Three of us drank gin and the wife had a carafe of wine. 

 

The portions seemed to be considerably more generous than we remember and some of the dishes, like the pulled duck risotto, might as well have been just a standard main course, which isn’t quite what one expects when you do “small plates”.

 

Shock! Horror! A restaurant actually serves substantial small plate dishes.

 

We didn’t go for that “Let’s order a multiplicity of dishes we can all dip into” and each of us selected their personal faves.  Even so, there was some cross-tasting.

 

The burrata was exquisitely soft, smooth and creamy and the dish had the exquisite flavours of caprese salad. 

 

My three choices were the baked Camembert, the sous vide octopus and the BBQ pork ribs. The wife chose the crisp deep-fried calamari, lamb ragu pasta and the pulled duck and artichoke risotto.  The elder goddaughter had the pork belly, the gnocchi with oxtail ragu and the gambas al Ajilo. The younger goddaughter had the squid, the BBQ pork ribs and the truffle mushroom gnocchi.

 

 

The neat methodology of service was that the tapas were served as courses instead of being brought to the table in groups that cover the surface of the table and are too much at once.

The baked Camembert was wonderful; how far wrong can one go with sumptuously melted cheese and melba toast?  The octopus with crisp potato cubes was sublime and easily the best such dish I’ve had since a brief holiday in Istanbul last year, and the pork ribs had a deep, rich, sticky glaze to elevate the perfectly cooked meat into the next hemisphere.  I also tasted the pork belly and thought that it was another example of slightly overcooked belly, that has little or no inherent flavour that’s saved by the sticky, rich sauce, which makes it a good dish, though not an exemplary one.

 

For the wife the burrata and the deeply flavourful lamb ragu dish were the highlights. She thought the risotto was one dish too far, given the generous, main course quantity, after two already abundant plates, and I finished half of it.  Risotto isn’t my jam but I could appreciate it for its unctuous and rich qualities.

 

The younger goddaughter was mildly troubled by too much truffle in her gnocchi dish. It’s a flavour that should be subtler for proper effect otherwise it simply bullies the other flavours into slinking away off the palate.

 

On the whole, though, the dishes were superb and deeply satisfying. 

 

The three desserts were a brownie, sticky toffee pudding and cheesecake. I can only speak for the cheesecake and it was sublime, with the dry, slightly crumbly texture that I adore. Apparently the other desserts were scrumptious too. 

 

The bill came to R2 083,00 including drinks.

 

Bouchon is a buzz and seems always to be full and that’s testament, I think, to both the food and the ambience. We’ve never had a disappointment here and over the course of so many years, that’s saying something.