Our last dinner in Cape Town. I saved the best for last. And then it broke me. Not in a bad way. In the way that makes you wonder what you have been searching for all along.
I sat down to write a review of FYN. This is not it.
We have eaten at enough tasting menus to know the formula. Eight courses, twelve courses, sometimes more. Beautiful plates.
A waiter who describes the dish longer than it takes to eat it. A foam that tastes of nothing but looks like it belongs on the plate.
A sommelier who arrives at precisely the right moment to pour something you did not ask for. It is a performance, and when it works, it is impressive.
But impressive is not the same as exciting. And exciting is not the same as something that stays with you.
Lately, the excitement has been fading. Not all at once. Not a sudden fall. You just wake up one morning and realise you are no longer looking forward to the next booking.
La Colombe was the moment it became clear. We sat through the whole show and felt nothing. All theatre, no heart. We published that review because it was honest, and because silence would have been worse. But it changed something in how we look at these evenings.
Then Lille Molle in Copenhagen, just this past weekend. Everyone says the first Michelin star is coming in June. The service was polished. The dishes were beautiful. It was a blueprint.
But apart from one exceptional broth, the food did not say much. We sat there agreeing it would probably get the star, and agreeing it did not deserve one.
That is a strange place to be.
Here is what it comes down to. I do not care about stars, definitely not about 50 Best, or how many courses arrive at the table. I want the kitchen to have heart.
When a kitchen moves as one, when the chefs are having fun, when they love what they are doing, and when you can see the red thread running through every dish, you know.
I have never worked in a restaurant. But I know what it tastes like when a kitchen beats as one. And I know what it tastes like when it does not.
We booked the 18:00 seating and chose two seats at the end of the counter, the chef’s table. Best decision we made in Cape Town, okay, it was my wife who made the reservation.
From there, you are not watching a restaurant. You are sitting inside one that is working. The plates go up in front of you. The tickets pile up.
The tempo rises. And nobody panics. A kitchen under pressure, not in chaos. They were enjoying it.
Between courses, we talked to the chefs. Not the polished table-side presentation where someone explains the soil the beetroot grew in. Actual conversation. The kind where you forget you are the guest and they are working.
Tsukemono
A small plate arrived early. Pickled vegetables, tsukemono, a Japanese touch that sat beside us for the rest of the evening. Pickled daikon, beetroot, kimchi with sesame, and baby corn.
My wife kept reaching for it between courses. The acidity suits her better than me. But we both noticed it, appreciated it. That is probably why we do this. Notice the small things.
Eight courses followed, and every single one carried real flavour. Not technique pretending to be flavour. Not presentation hoping you would not notice the taste was missing.
Actual, confident flavour. The kind where you take a bite, put your chopsticks down and say nothing because the food just said it for you.
I looked at my wife. She looked at me. We both knew. This was the one.
A restaurant on the edge; driven by passion, tempered by precision. FYN
We agreed.
Sitting in the middle of the restaurant would have been a different experience. The tables are close together, the room fills up fast, and the energy is louder, busier.
From the counter, it was personal.
And then the moment neither of us planned.
My wife, by now way past her second glass, stood up from her barstool, looked me in the eyes, and told me how much she loved me. What I meant to her. What our life together meant.
She said it in English. We are Swedish. I did not even notice at the time.
Tears in her eyes. Tears in mine. It was completely spontaneous. I cannot say whether the restaurant moved her to say it. I think it did. That was the food talking. Or perhaps the wine. Or both. One thing was clear, the stars were aligned.
When we left, the staff gave her the kind of hugs you do not get from people following a service manual. They had heard her. They were moved. So were we.
But I know it would not have happened at La Colombe.
We are going to Japan in October. It started at Hoseki in Stellenbosch, FYN took it further. I have read about restaurants there that seat eight guests, barely more than a hole in the wall, serving some of the best food in the world.
I do not know if what I will find is soul or just precision. But I want to find out.
I will still go to Michelin restaurants. I will still write reviews. But only when there is something worth saying. It is not my job to steer people away from bad choices.
Taste is subjective, and one person’s perfect evening is another person’s disappointment. La Colombe proved that. People loved it. We sat there and saw right through it.
What I will write about is what matters. Chefs cooking their hearts out. Kitchens that are having fun.
The neighbourhood restaurant in Rome that no tourist has found, where the cooking is brilliant and honest. The three-star chef who still gets excited by a perfect sauce.
FYN was that restaurant.
I sat down to write a review. I wrote something else.
Visit: Late March 2026
