Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Lists Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

At Cape Town’s Salsify, Ryan Cole Draws From the Sea and Soil

Drawing on fishing, foraging and South Africa's layered food traditions, chef Ryan Cole builds tasting menus shaped by the Cape itself.

Our boat has only just arrived at Cape Point, on the far southern point of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula, when one of the fishing lines begins to pull. It’s a sunny day at the end of April, the beginning of autumn in this part of the world, and it’s yellowtail season. We are on one of many small boats circling in hopes that the fish will bite. As it turns out, today is a particularly good day on the sea.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

I’m fishing with Ryan Cole, executive chef at Cape Town’s Salsify at The Roundhouse, and his brother, Donovan, a commercial fisherman who runs Ocean Life Charters and supplies a lot of the seafood served at Salsify. They’ve been fishing here since they were kids—their father, Roy, was also a commercial fisherman—but the excitement of landing a catch is still palpable. As soon as one line is reeled in, another begins to pull. After less than an hour, there are 17 enormous yellowtail lying on the boat’s deck. Another 10, at least, were thrown back because they were too small.

For an amateur angler like myself, it feels like good luck, especially since some of the other boats aren’t so prosperous. “It isn’t luck,” Cole explains later that day, back in Salsify’s dining room. “You need to be able to read the signs and the conditions. That, for me, is the magic and the romance of fishing. And that’s what cooking is, too. You need to be able to see the signs. It becomes an extension of who you are. Donovan and I have been like this on the water, but I can feel it in the kitchen, too.”

Cole, now 37, grew up in Cape Town in a self-described “poor” family. His most vivid early memories are driving from his parents’ house in the back of his dad’s old van with his crew, hauling their fishing boat behind them. He was six the first time he went out on the boat, and he still goes fishing as often as possible.

“A lot of the commercial guys are out today [fishing], who have their own boats, learned to fish with my dad,” he says. “He’s like a living legend. I watched my dad toil and slave away to craft a living and provide for his family. I knew you had to work fucking hard. For me, the ocean has always been where food is from.” 

The fish we catch that morning in Cape Point can’t be sold (it has to be fished under a commercial license to do so), but it will be doled out to friends and family or donated to a local retirement home. Cole does, however, serve his brother’s catch at Salsify, paying a premium for first pick. When I dined at the restaurant a........

© Observer