Restaurant review: Say Cheese, Salt Rock

It's no surprise that cheese is the start of the menu at this aptly named cafe-cum-deli on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.

The name alone of this unpretentious café-cum-deli brings a smile. But in case it doesn't, the menu carries alternatives: kazhi zele (say cabbage) should you be Bulgarian, perhaps; diga whisky for Spanish speakers.

What's clear is that smiling customers are as important as cheese to owners Alistair and Caroline Clark - and cheese is very important. Alistair has been involved with it most of his life, in companies from Clover to Lancewood. And now that he and his wife have followed their adult children in pursuit of the Jozi dream, fleeing the big smoke for the sea breezes of the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast, he is sharing his passion in the first specialist cheese venture in the region.

The selection may not be the widest - ask Alistair for Red Leicester, Limburger or Venezuelan beaver cheese, for example, and you may have to make like John Cleese in the Monty Python skit and shoot him. But there are a good 15 to 20 to choose from, goat's sweetmilk to gorgonzola, and all of fine quality, sourced mainly from the Midlands.

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Purists can savour them unadulterated in a variety of cheese boards, from ware South African - a local mix with droëwors, naartjie and masala pineapple - to British, where a Cleese-pleasing tilsit and smoked cheddar come with roast beef, pickles, spicy mustard and marmalade (R70).

We were swayed by two house specials: a croissant with brie and cranberry sauce (R32), and the delightful Caroline's Cheesa (R35) - mozzarella and cheddar melted on artisan bread with sunflower-seed-and-basil pesto, and a lovingly arranged '70s-style side salad.

These simple standards are elevated to snack heaven by the quality not simply of the cheese and relishes (also locally sourced and homemade), but of the croissants and bread, prepared by popular North Coast "bread head" Barry Korb, aka the Artisan Baker.

When Korb, a neighbour of the Clarks when they arrived in Salt Rock last year, learned they were after business premises he pointed them to his own, above a parking lot and boasting a sliver of sea view, where they are today.

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Korb could no longer operate a bakery there, with load-shedding spoiling 2 000kg of dough in a month, and he's moved into the nearby Mount Edgecombe KwikSpar, which boasts back-up generators. Power is far less an issue for the Clarks, who prefer chatting with customers to playing music, and don't open after dark.

For pud we split a crumbed, quick-fried camembert with pecan nuts and warm cinnamon honey (R45) - a cinch to prepare over gas. Coffee comes with covetable pain au chocolate "rusks", but a smoothie of apple, cucumber and mint (R23) was called for. It cuts the cheesy richness to perfection.

Blessed, indeed, are the cheesemakers.

Visit: Say Cheese, Mall 505, 60 Basil Hulett Drive, Salt Rock, 082-335-9741; 7am-3pm Tuesday to Saturday; 7-9am Sunday.