As early as 2008, renowned author and journalist Brent Meersman reviewed some of Cape Town’s best eateries. At the time, Meersman plied his trade for the Mail and Guardian, ultimately drawing much-needed attention to the publication because of his work. Political articles for “This is Africa” later followed, proving that Meersman was indeed a jack of all trades. Today, almost 10 years later, I will review 3 of his “reviews” as well as provide an update on his career since then.
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| Photograph of Brent Meersman. (Credits: Brent Meersman's Instagram page) |
Reviewing restaurants in Cape Town is quite a big deal. According to the South African venues, the city is “home to thousands of restaurants,” making reviews important for Capetonians and visitng tourists.
Sharma (2022) explained that writing a restaurant review can be a good way of sharing your excitement about a restaurant or warning potential diners about a disappointing experience. However, in these particular pieces, one could argue that Meersman didn’t do either, resulting in him missing the plot.
The articles are titled “Bitten by the food bug” and “Confused but content”. Quite fascinating titles hey?
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Brent Meersman's Articles courtesty of M&G
The first article, "Bitten by the food bug," is confusing.
This is because the writer shares his experiences in reviewing restaurants
rather than reviewing an actual restaurant. I mean, it might not be focusing on
one subject but one would’ve expected the writer to at least provide more
details about the places mentioned in the piece.
It’s safe to say that both articles were not written in chronological
order. This means that the writer was “literally” jumping from one topic to
another. Now, this might sound like an unfair judgement but imagine this, one
minute you’re reading about the history of Italian food then the next you’re introduced
to an Italian restaurant in Loop Street that doesn’t sell Pizza. All this does
is confuse the reader.
Reviews always require criteria to develop the grounds a body of work is evaluated. In this case, there was no criteria. Meersman wrote about the different cuisines he tried out in the city. A reader would’ve expected to see what he ate there, where the places are, and whether the cuisines were worth it or not. All of these important aspects were not included. He never touched on the Pros and Cons of these restaurants. I found myself wondering where these cuisines actually are in Cape Town. A question I’m sure many readers had lingering on their minds.
One of the goals of a good review is to certainly make readers understand the places much better. Small details, which may look unnecessary help readers imagine the scenery. The writer didn’t do this at all. Instead, he disparaged Café Giulia describing their shelves as “not quite organised” and their waiters “not trained”.
In both reviews, there wasn’t a single recommendation of the places even though contact details of restaurants were included in the second piece. There was no additional information about these places. Do these places sell alcohol? How big are these restaurants, do they accept reservations and would the writer recommend them?
I guess I’ll never know.
Let us now move away from the restaurant reviews and focus on the National Arts Festival piece written by Meersman in 2015. The article is titled, “Rethinking the National arts festival” and is a piece worth reading.
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| Article cover by Brent Meersman. (Picture supplied by Google) |
In this piece Meersman focuses on the positives the festival brings to
Grahamstown, which is now known as Makhanda. He provides context on the
protesting (for service delivery) that took place before the festival.
He further adds that the government’s failure to deliver shouldn’t be blamed on the festival. As much as people call it an “elitist” festival what comes out of It for Grahamstown residences according to Meersman is good only.
In an attempt to find out more about Meersman, I reached out and he humbly responded.
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My conversation with Mr. Meersman via email.
“The last article I wrote for the M&G was in 2017, I stopped my food column in 2016.” Meersman added that he was still based in Cape Town and has been co-editor of GroundUp News since 2015.
“At GroundUp, I am very much involved in hard news daily. I have also written quite a lot about politics, society, and the economy”.
In 2021 Meersman released a book titled Rattling the Cage. He says the book was inspired by wanting to re-evaluate his views on the South African story and the current reality to see if they help up. “Had I been properly informed of the facts? How solid and defensible is my current take on things?” said the author.
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| Brent Meersman's latest novel (Picture supplied by Google) |