22/05/2026
On the 18th of August 2016, on the last day of his first visit to southern Africa, Carlo Petrini sat down to a private Slow Food lunch at Wolfgat. We had not yet opened to the public. He was, officially, our very first guest.
The day was warm and sunny... one of those temperate West Coast winter afternoons when Paternoster Bay glistens with quiet beauty.
He spoke no English. I spoke no Italian. And yet nothing was lost in translation. He understood and appreciated every detail - from the klipkombers picked on the rocks below us, the humble bokkoms dried in the west coast wind, to the duinekool from the local veld. Things only this singular stretch of coast can give.
He enjoyed lunch unhurriedly, the way he had taught the world to eat. At the end he said it had been one of the most memorable meals of his life.
He was emotional. He wished us such great success. We were emotional too.
It is difficult to convey how much that afternoon meant to us. Especially with dear friends and colleagues Zayaan Khan, Loubie Rusch, Ishay Govender, Elzanne Singels, Roelie van Heerden and Francesco Anastasi in attendance.
Until that first lunch, Wolfgat existed mostly in our heads and on a few handwritten scribbles of paper. And then the man who had spent forty years arguing on a global stage that a place's food is a place's dignity, was the first to be seated at our table — and the first to recognise what we were trying to do.
Addio, Signor Petrini. E grazie di tutto.
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