Urchin Restaurant, housed within the Hyatt Regency Cape Town, has entered a new chapter under the vision of Head Chef Marcus Gericke. Known for his thoughtful approach to local ingredients and his celebrated global career, Gericke has reimagined Urchin as an honest expression of the Western Cape, embracing source, terroir and heritage.
“Urchin has always been about connection to source,” says Chef Marcus Gericke. “This season, we have evolved the menu to tell a deeper story of the Western Cape through dishes that hold a sense of place, memory and the people behind every ingredient.”
Recognised as Global Chef Africa & Middle East 2022–23, awarded the Fine Dining Lovers Food for Thought prize for his dish Remembrance (Quail Consommé) at the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy 2020–21, and crowned South African Chef of the Year 2024, Gericke brings world-class skill paired with a deeply personal narrative.
To shape the new menu, Gericke and his team embarked on a 1,627-kilometre journey across the province, from Kalk Bay’s fishing docks to the wide plains of the Karoo, along the Garden Route and back to Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap. Along the way, they spoke with farmers, butchers and home cooks, discovering the traditions, seasonal wisdom and flavours that define the region.
The result is Journey, a nine-course homage to and interpretation of the road trip that shaped this menu.
The homage to quintessentially Cape-inspired cuisine begins with Voorhappie, where snoek meets mebos and curry leaf, a dish born from early-morning trips to Kalk Bay, where time spent with Aunty Ashmita and choosing the freshest catch becomes a ritual of sea-to-table simplicity. Next comes freshly baked bread, paired with jam, farm butter and fragrant fynbos oil, inspired by the oldest recorded recipe for brown bread from Stellenbosch and enriched by Urchin’s beloved sourdough starter, Pete, who has been nurtured for 20 years. The Beginbord follows, featuring sweet, succulent crayfish with lemon garlic sauce, paying tribute to the unspoilt shores of Paternoster, where keeping things simple and elegant felt essential.
