Let's do lunch: Order of the day

If you've worked in Cape Town's foreshore offices this winter and stepped out for lunch, there's a good chance Borage Bistro has been on your radar.

Open for business since May in the new Portswood Building's ground floor, this restaurant attracts pretty young things for eggs Benedict breakfasts on its wide terrace on Saturdays.

Five-star hotels are within easy walking distance, but most of Borage's trade comes from close-by financial institutions and corporates.

Frank Marks, a quiet, 29-year-old Silwood Kitchen graduate, is the culinary architect behind Borage.

He said: "We wanted to be in the foreshore, to cater to businesspeople by offering them a 'classier' lunch than the average.

"I never wanted to go fine dining with Borage; it's too strict. I wanted to do good cooking people would enjoy."

Windhoek-born Marks is in business with a food-loving banker, his childhood friend Christian Vaatz. They had planned to wait another year before opening, but an available space changed all that.

Marks is young but he has cooked under some big names, completing his practical studies under chef Luke Dale-Roberts at La Colombe, and joining the opening team when Dale-Roberts went solo with The Test Kitchen.

Originally inspired to pursue cooking after watching Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection series, Marks moved to England in 2011 to learn from his hero. He spent long hours slogging at Blumenthal's The Fat Duck and Dinner. Returning to Cape Town in 2013, Marks rejoined his mentor at The Test Kitchen and The Pot Luck Club.

The small Borage blackboard lunch menu and daytime trading hours and food gives Marks a flexibility he would not have had otherwise.

He said: "I decided there had to be a way to be a chef and also have a life.

"Making it a bistro gives us more room to come up with what we want. We can do a rustic fish, aubergine and caper caponata, or a fine dining duck breast cooked in a water bath with confit leg, Brussels sprout petals and spiced duck sauce."

Most starters cost R60, with mains straddling R80 to R105. The signature dish is chicken pie, deconstructed into its parts so a round pastry crown holds individual chicken pieces and garden vegetables with a chicken-and-thyme sauce. Soup also has a cheffy element: purees topped with tangy foams, and slow-roasted veggie "salts" on the plate.

Those who order fish and chips receive ordinary hake, but vodka and beer keeps the batter wafer-light. The milk, onion and caper "tartare gel" was a Blumenthal influence lost on me, but the same chef's triple-cooked chips are well worth having.

• Borage Bistro, Ground Floor, Portside Building, corner Buitengracht Street and Hans Strydom Avenue, Cape Town. Call 021-418-992, www.borage.co.za