palates AND PAINTBRUSHES

“The tattoo?” asks Phil de Villiers, when I comment on the inky outline of a pig adorning his right arm. “I guess you could say it’s a homage to my love of food, my love of meat.”

And Phil is certainly a man who loves food, talking passionately about everything from foraging to fermentation as we discuss his latest role as executive chef of The Skotnes Restaurant at the Norval Foundation. Here, in Cape Town’s Constantia Winelands, he oversees a kitchen that’s helping to entrench this leafy corner on the city’s gourmet map.

Phil first buttoned up his chef’s whites at the respected Prue Leith