Since opening Galjoen in June 2023, chef-restaurateurs Anouchka Horn and Neil Swart – who first made their mark on Cape Town’s culinary scene with Belly of the Beast – have launched a new collaborative project, Seebamboes.
Situated on the mezzanine above Galjoen, Seebamboes is an intimate restaurant, for which they’ve partnered with chef Adél Hughes and artist Liebet Jooste to develop a tasting menu experience that riffs on gastronomic nostalgia in a contemporary reimagining of what ‘surf and turf’ can be. And what it should be: playful, celebratory and delicious.
“If surf and turf has had a bad rap, it’s because it’s been badly executed in the past,” says Swart. “It was always these obvious combinations, like steak and calamari, or steak and prawns – often quite unflatteringly prepared.”
Horn says the much-maligned carpetbagger steak was among the first dishes discussed when they began bouncing ideas around. “Because it’s one of those old-school dishes people order, but no one ever gets right.” However, Swart and Horn believe there are ways of combining sea- and land-harvested produce in more nuanced, experimental and delicious ways. Their aim is to make surf and turf memorable for all the right reasons.
Surf & Turf Reimagined
With Seebamboes, they plan to demonstrate the broader creative potential of sea and land ingredients brought together in imaginative ways. The restaurant name, which translates directly to ‘sea bamboo’ – also known as ‘Ecklonia maxima’, a kelp native to South Africa, that grows up to 12m tall – is inspired by the Great African Seaforest visible around Cape Town.
“We’ve always been very passionate about surf and turf,” says Horn. “We want to take that nostalgia aspect and flip it around, creating something new with it. Not necessarily a big piece of fish and a big piece of meat together on a plate. It might also be seaweed with meat or a mix of seaweeds with land vegetables. Because vegetables are also turf, right?”
Hughes, who works at the helm of the kitchen, has been working on Seebamboes in the back of her mind for a long time. It began in Betty’s Bay, where picking up pieces of dried kelp on the beach got her thinking about the interplay between sea and land, ocean and shore, and how ingredients harvested from both could serve as an interesting conceptual focus for a restaurant tasting menu.
“Rather than any usual surf and turf combinations, we’re coming in from the side and creating unanticipated flavours,” Hughes says. “We’re unlikely to do a straight steak and calamari, but at some stage, I do want to create a pairing of chokka and trinchado.”
Jooste, who manages the restaurant, says they’re effectively ‘deconstructing’ surf and turf, “elevating everything from the land and from the sea in its own right as well.” That includes using sea bamboo, an incredibly nutritious, fast-growing sea vegetable, as an ingredient, experimenting with lesser-known indigenous plants and playing with unexpected combinations in search of rewarding flavours.
The setting embodies that playful spirit. Up some stairs from inside Galjoen, diners step into the intimate mezzanine space where food is prepared and cooked close to the tables. An impermanent ‘wall of curiosities’ artwork at the top of the stairs showcases objects picked up on the beach or from the veld, alluding to an ever-changing menu that reflects the seasons, food memories and cravings, and culinary ideas triggered by long conversations about dishes and their potential for reinvention.
High tables with tall chairs creates a faintly bar-like atmosphere, and through the large rectangular window, there’s an unexpected view of Table Mountain visible over the chefs’ shoulders. The design scheme incorporates reclaimed glass embedded with sea sand, so it appears to have been weathered by years spent tumbling around in the ocean.
Together with colours derived from sea bamboo, these subtle touches imaginatively evoke the shoreline – that in-between place where land and ocean engage in a kind of eternal conversation. A clean, sophisticated space with the focus absolutely on the food. Comfortable, too, and despite the scale of the dining concept, the restaurant itself is incredibly intimate – 16 diners at a push.
“We don’t like big restaurants, so the size is perfect for us,” says Swart, who hopes each meal will take diners on a shared culinary adventure. “A tasting menu should be like going to watch a good show,” he says. “It takes you on a journey that flows according to a rhythm.”
“And we’re doing that with some very cool dishes,” says Horn. “And with huge imagination.”
A Taste of the Menu
One of the first things you might eat at Seebamboes will be sea bamboo itself, albeit transformed into a bowl of delicious flavours – think kelp spaghetti with exotic mushrooms and a seaweed broth. Added to that, thinly sliced Wagyu brisket, so that when the hot broth is poured over, it all melts. “You’re eating sea vegetables and exotic mushrooms in what is almost a light dashi, the Wagyu providing a touch of fat in the mouth,” says Hughes.
They’re digging deep, too, to come up with fairly subtle, sometimes unusual pairings. So you might taste snoek mousse and biltong powder with dune spinach and tomato, or perhaps shoestring fries with bokkom butter. And, as an accompaniment to a Wagyu rib-eye done in a Korean-style barbecue basting, they’ve used a kelp stipe as a vessel to cook vegetables on hot coals. “The vegetables cook inside the kelp stipe, and then we’ll take that to the table and cut it open and you can eat the vegetables directly from the stipe,” says Hughes.
Other combinations they’re experimenting with emphasise simplicity: lamb chops with peppered seaweed salt cooked over the fire, maybe octopus with roasted ripe tomatoes. And there’s venison tataki with veldkool (dune cabbage), a very simple vegetable that looks like asparagus, but grows in the sand and is a native plant.
The other thing that’s to be an adventure at Seebamboes, which also comes from the land, is the wine. “We’re opting for a more offbeat wine list”, says Jooste. “We’ll serve plenty of wines that you won’t just find anywhere – and many will be available by the glass. We’re going to showcase wines we’ve personally discovered and feel passionate about. New finds will land on the list, and when one offbeat wine is finished, we’ll follow up with another.”
Desserts, too, are a playful take on what might evoke memories of seaside holidays. Elevated ice cream sandwiches will be a sort of signature sweet – think vanilla bean ice cream with a dark chocolate biscuit, some dried, dusted sea lettuce and a caramel crunch – or a simple Eskimo pie, another staple of nostalgic beach holidays, but with a twist.
“We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves,” says Hughes, emphasising that the menu will be ever-evolving and the team is always looking for new ways to play.
What they won’t be doing, though, she says, is trying to be trendy for the sheer sake of it. “We’re very strict on never using ingredients simply because they sound cool,” she says. “Because first and foremost, it’s got to be delicious,” says Swart.
“It’s that balance of flavours that we experience as deliciousness. That’s what we’re striving for, and that’s why we do what we do. It’s not about seeing if we can put ice cream and seaweed together because the combination sounds cool. Deliciousness is where we start. Looking good on the plate ranks second or third. If it happens to be cool, that’s an added bonus.”
Sustainability at Seebamboes
Sustainability is a key priority at Seebamboes, with a focus on innovation to reduce waste and uphold an ethical approach to sourcing ingredients.
Much like at Belly of the Beast and Galjoen, the aim is to strike the right balance between delivering a memorable dining experience and maintaining respect for both ingredients and the environment. Swart explains that this ethos is realised by remaining steadfast in their commitment to sourcing produce and proteins locally.
“We’ve set our boundaries as the borders of our country – no imported prawns, salmon or anything of that sort. We simply don’t believe in bringing in foreign ingredients, when we have such an abundance right here.”
To make a reservation at Seebamboes, visit the website link below and follow them on socials.
Dinner is served at R 1200 per person, from 18h45pm, every Tuesday to Saturday. *Lunches will only be available at a later stage. | Seebamboes, 99 Harrington St, District Six, Cape Town, 7925.