Ultimate Guide To Africa April 2015 | Page 57

E

ntering the restaurant is like being welcomed into a
world wholly apart from the city outisde. The walls
are painted in tones of warm burnt orange, with
a multitude of gold-labelled brown laboratory bottles
creating a striking feature that whets both the curiosity
and the appetite upon arrival. The unique bottles are
filled with flavour compounds that artist and chef Jacques
Erasmus has developed in the kitchen. The result of his
creative wizardry, they are aptly referred to as Flavour
Intense. When Chef Jacques the alchemist discovers the
perfect blend for a Kashmiri chai, achieves the perfect
balance for his black dukkah, turns sundried tomatoes
into dust or a surplus of citrus fruit into a soft powder, the
results are bottled to be shared not only in the restaurant
but by those wanting to take them home and create a bit
of magic themselves.
In the four years since its opening in October 2010,
Hemelhuijs has undergone several transformations.
The initial black walls gave way to green, then grey
was introduced. The art changed, the displays were
reinvented, and the floral features styled according to
the changing mood. The menu of course also changes
according to the season. It is this constantly evolving

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Text: Tiffany Lovemore Images © Hemelhuijs

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Hemelhuijs restaurant on Cape Town’s trendy Waterkant Street really has come to
represent a culinary heaven on earth.

in the know

Alchemy at Hemelhuijs

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