• Now in its second year, Dineplan has published its annual Reviewers’ Choice Awards for 2023.
• Sourcing information from 290 000 reviews, it has listed the Top 100 restaurants in SA.
• Good to Gather in Stellenbosch, took home the top honours in this year’s list.

Recommendations are always welcome in trying to find new restaurants worth checking out. With that in mind, online booking platform Dineplan has shared its latest Reviewers’ Choice Awards for 2023.

Now in its second year, the annual list aims to identify and highlight the best reviewed restaurants in the country, with a Top 100 being created based on more than 290 000 reviews of 1 300-plus locations in South Africa.

With the reviews sourced from data between September of last year and 1st October of 2023, restaurants were rated on a number of elements including the food, value for money, quality of service, and overall ambience.

“Scooping the number one spot on this year’s top 100 list is Good to Gather, a tiny farm-to-table restaurant on Rozendal Farm at the foot of the Botmaskop mountain in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. After taking second place in 2022, this year the eatery not only ascended to become the country’s overall number one choice, but also took top honours in the ambience and food categories,” Dineplan explained in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“Owned by husband-and-wife duo Jess and Luke Grant, Good to Gather offers a three-course menu that changes weekly and incorporates seasonal ingredients locally sourced from small-scale farmers,” it added regarding what the establishment is best known for.

“Words cannot express how honoured we are to receive such a wonderful accolade! We started our business three years ago, through all the trials and challenges of 2020, and turned an old dairy room into a kitchen. We now also have a farm shop that makes all the produce we source available to guests and the local community,” the couple owners noted of receiving the top spot in this year’s list.

“Our focus has always been on creating an experience that is a reflection and extension of who we are, our love for gathering the best produce we can find and the joy of sharing it with our guests.,” they added.

As for the other top-reviewed restaurants, the Western Cape dominated as far as the Top 5 are concerned, with the other four being:

• Reverie Social Table in Cape Town (last year’s first-place winner), 
• Rust en Vrede in Stellenbosch, 
• The Table at De Meye in Stellenbosch,
• Stettyn Family Vineyards Tasting Room in Villiersdorp.

You can see the full list of this year’s best-reviewed restaurants here, broken down in terms of region.

[Images – Provided]