FISHER KINGS
“THERE ARE only two good times to go fishing,” shouts Donavan Cole over the roar of the outboard engines. “When it’s raining, and…” he shoots a mischievous glance at me with the punchline. “When it’s not!”
Ryan Cole chuckles at his brother’s joke, perhaps not for the first time, and turns to admire the phosphorescence shimmering in our wake.
The deck of a fishing boat speeding south into False Bay may be an unusual place to interview a chef, but I’d wager there’s no place Ryan Cole would rather be on his day off.
As the head chef of Salsify at The Roundhouse, hidden on the mountain slopes above the Atlantic seaboard, Ryan has risen up the fine-dining ranks at speed. At 30, he’s already notched up stages in Michelin-starred restaurants in London and he headed up The Test Kitchen team alongside Luke Dale Roberts. You are more likely to have seen him in chef’s whites than a beanie and fishing gear.
“Just because some chefs serve red-listed fish and get away with it doesn’t make it right” – Ryan Cole
But Ryan and Donavan have the ocean in their blood. Their father, Roy, was a commercial fisherman for nearly 20 years, which means Ryan was scrubbing decks and filleting fish aged eight.
