Smitten — Restaurant in Stellenbosch Local Municipality

I visited yesterday again to try the food and see if the coffee changed.

I don’t know if they use more local produce beyond what I’ve been able to easily find. The website, social media, or menu does not offer this information but they do claim to use local produce. I guess I am confused about why a “loveletter to Franschhoek” chooses not to use local produce like the salmon trout (instead, extremely expensive Norwegian salmon) or coffee (non-Franschhoek Origin brand) in favour of non-local produce, when the local produce is as high a quality as you could want and also readily available. I know of many restaurants making use of these products without complaints from customers as to quality.

They could buy PnP beans for how well they manage to use the beans they do have though, even with a double-shot over the default single-shot (why?). The coffee was deeply bitter and lacking any real flavor, and still served way too hot to drink. I drove to Paarl and visited a random dairy factory shop with a two-man coffee stand on a beaten up bookshelf that had much better coffee. Nothing changed since my last review. Whoever makes the coffee has no idea of what they are doing, or about coffee in general, based on what I’ve had from Smitten. If a famous breakfast place manages to produce terrible coffee with an obvious misunderstanding of the beverage in the first place I start doubting everything else they offer, as coffee is so fundamental to any place like this.

The restaurant was half-empty when we visited but did fill up rather quickly.

The “Benedict” does not use an English muffin and is therefore not a Benedict. The roll it is served with also came bone dry and half-burnt. The Hollandaise sauce was delicious.

Ordering a “Benedict” with soft-poached eggs and bacon, I received two poached eggs, both undercooked with the egg white still raw inside. I asked for a replacement and received one hard-poached egg (how?) and one soft-poached egg even more raw than the first two. The bacon was also burnt and tough. I sent it  back and did not ask for another meal. This makes it evident that quality control is a problem here, since sending a meal back only once is usually enough to fix the issue and warrants a visit from management, which did not happen here. How a meal failed to be prepared correctly after being sent back once already baffles me. Did nobody actually check the replacement meal before sending it out? Management seemed to be unaware of any problems, which surprised me. They were taking selfies with customers though. The croissants were over-cooked on the outside and under-cooked inside. The sticky bun was dry if not for the icing on top.

This is a nit-pick but the music was all over the place and jerked me out of the intended atmosphere of the place. They may have a curated playlist but it really felt like Spotify auto-play.

This place kinda feels like it only really serves to boost the image of the owners, as the cosmetics are paid attention to in detail, down to expensive orchids on the tables and strange fat puffy naan bread, but the food and coffee is neglected.

I will not visit again. There are much better local, cheaper alternatives to Smitten.

Overall I am very confused, still. The place is not cohesive and there are obvious problems with fundamentals and management. They advertise so much as something they are not, which left me quite disappointed since I was very excited to...

I’ve been wanting to visit since they opened and I finally had the chance to visit yesterday. Naturally, I was very excited to try the food since there are so many great reviews and the pictures always looked delicious. We loved the setup of the cafe and the service was very friendly, albeit slow, considering we were one of four tables at the time. We ordered coffees (all different types but all delicious) and lunch: 1 glazed chicken salad and 2 Caesar salads, both with extra GRILLED prawns (4). As you will note, there are some very pale, steamed prawn tails (probably left over from prawn cocktail, which states on the menu that they use STEAMED prawn tails. They were very bland and had not been NEAR a grill. I mentioned this to the waitress and she took the plates, only to return with what you see below. We proceeded to eat our salads, only to find that most of the lettuce were drenched in salad dressing. The desserts...

What an experience, it starts with a quaint alleyway, furnished with ferns and hanging baskets and clever water feature which sets the tone. Got greeted at the side entrance and taken to a table with a lovely breeze and view of the lovely alleyway. The menu is small and refined, this can be seen in the quality and precision of the food presented. My Eggs Benedict was perfect, soft yolk, firm white, crispy bacon, lovely Hollandaise sauce and crispy brioche bun. The restaurant was full and the staff were very busy, but you wouldn't have said so. Service was quick and friendly. The decor is very camp, purple, green, gold, blacks, but very tasteful and elegantly. The owners are very hands on and present. This can be seen the way that Smitten is run and how well organized it is.. Overall, what a lovely experience, I highly...