Unveil Victoria 22’s secret

 They’d recently reopened after a refurbishment and the place looked new.
I walked along the path to the entrance past a bank of orange clivias in full flower and then into the most beautiful entrance hall.
A large bowl of yellow and white flowers stood on an old teak railway sleeper table, a suitably faded Persian carpet was on the wooden floor and crisp white cotton curtains lifted gently in the breeze.
I was shown to our table where John was already seated and after we’d settled down with our drinks, water alas, as we both wanted to work that afternoon, I noticed, beyond the sea of floor length white table cloths, a window, open to the garden.
There an attractive woman in a yellow dress was arranging flowers at an outside table. I felt we were guests invited to an elegant lunch in an exquisite private home.
I later learned that her name is Manuela and she owns and runs the restaurant together with her husband Mark Wollmann who is the chef. The best restaurants are those that are owner run and this is quite honestly one of the loveliest that I’ve been to anywhere in the world. And Manuela’s flowers are a joy.
We were offered fresh baked rolls and butter that didn’t taste rancid as most butter in this country does. (Are we mining a butter mountain somewhere?) We both had an avocado and smoked salmon starter and my guest chose hake as a main course. I chose the Ravioli di pesce ai gamberetti which was delicious, the little prawns succulent and cooked to perfection and John pronounced his fish delicious.
The lunch menu wasn’t too large with six starters, four salads, five pasta dishes, 6 main courses and four puddings. A perfect size  — I loathe feeling I have to plough my way through an enormous menu, it impinges too much on conversation!
As we went there three weeks ago now I won’t go into great detail about the food because this is the kind of restaurant that will change its menus to suit the best of what’s available. You will find locally sourced game meats and fresh fish, even the oysters that have made me nervous ever since I gave a charity ball, flew them up from Knysna and worried about how to open sufficient for 300 people.
“Don’t worry,” breezed one of the organisers with scary Zimbabwe optimism. “I’m having oyster knives made in the workshop.” I didn’t own one then but knew what they looked like but my repeated requests to see the prototype were ignored and on the night he produced a spike with a handle. A homemade bradle, which was utterly useless. An oyster knife has a point and a flat blade so you can insert the point then twist the flat blade to force the two sides of the oyster shell apart. A belated apology to anyone who didn’t get their share of oysters that night. I now own an oyster knife, which I’ve never had call to use in Zimbabwe, because of what our Prince Edward schoolboy waiters were doing behind the scenes with sterilised penknives, large screwdrivers, paint strippers and silver fish knives!
This sort of amateurishness will not happen at Victoria 22! This is where I’d choose to go for a special meal because the service is discreet, food is divine and the ambience is perfect.
Victoria 22
22 Victoria Drive,
Newlands.
Tel: 776429, 0712 200 183, 0712 208 301.
Open for lunch Monday to Friday, dinner Monday to Saturday

– gjeke@yahoo.com