Restaurant Review: Chilliplum, Durban

Glynis Horning does fine dining — the vegan way at Chilliplum in Durban.

It's years since the only vegetarian option when eating out was parsley garnish donated by fellow diners. Most restaurants now feature excellent meat-free options, and it seemed that the time for VEE (Vegetarian Eating Empowerment) in the form of vegetarian only establishments was over. Then along came climate change, giving a fresh edge to the cause.

Apart from concerns over animal welfare and health (Banting arguments to the contrary), livestock and their by-products are said to produce 51% of g reenhouse gases, and ranching is responsible for 90% of deforestation.

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All this and the Cowspiracy movie persuaded a young Durban couple to open what they believe is KwaZulu-Natal’s, and possibly South Africa’s, first 100% plantbased, organic, fine-dining restaurant.

The entrance to Chilliplum is promising, with beds of jewel-bright edible flowers, lettuce, spinach and beetroot. So is the sophisticated décor — dark walls, snowy napiery and a well-stocked (organic) wine bar, with not a macramé basket, beaded curtain or dusty rubber plant in sight.

Robert Haupt, it turns out, is in construction, and wife Ursula (“Earthula”, to her already numerous Chilliplum webpage friends) wants to woo mainstream eaters, not simply the already converted.

With a background in restaurant management and catering, she opened a small Chilliplum café in Kloof several years ago, and is confident the time is ripe to move up.

On a drizzly spring Sunday, Ursula is sadly not in attendance at lunch, but we have the friendly front-of-house ministrations of Robert, who is also wearing the chef’s hat (a Sunflower Fund bandanna). The original chef, he confides, “did not work out”, and having cooked at home and in several restaurants, Robert stepped in.

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From curries to cassoulet and burgers, the menu is varied enough for meat-eaters not to notice their staple is absent. Starters of Penang ravioli filled with roasted butternut and cashew cheese in a Thai curry (R55) lack only a bread roll to mop the outstanding sauce. Spinach dolmades (also R55) could deliver more of the promised chardonnay and oregano in theirs.

Mains bullishly billed as “mushroom steak” are, frankly, a disappointment — even though we were not expecting real steak, as some diners reportedly have been.

Two black mushrooms, even with fine Port jus and three-root mash, are nothing I could not do at home, for far less than R120 — organic price inflation notwithstanding.

A pasta special (R100) with vodka- and chilli-infused tomatoes is sadly not al dente, and dry. A request for sauce brings “vegan cheese” — potato, carrot, nutritional yeast and canola oil. Berry ice cream made with soya is fine, but calls out for an edible flower. Unexpected winner is a complimentary (consolatory?) bowl of chocolate mousse — dense and delicious, I would never have dreamed it was avo!

With a pro chef and Earthula on hand, we ’ll be back.

Shop 9, Richdens Shopping Centre, 57 St Margaret’s Road, Hillcrest, 031 765 2590, www.chilliplum.org