Fisher Kings

Fishing isn’t just a hobby for Salsify head chef Ryan Cole, it’s a lifelong passion he shares with his brother, Donavan. Richard Holmes joined them on a day-offdawn excursion, followed by the fish braai to rule them all

- Richard Holmes

THERE ARE only two good times to go fishing,” shouts Donavan Cole over the roar of the outboard engines. “When it’s raining, and…” he shoots a mischievous glance at me with the punchline. “When it’s not!”

Ryan Cole chuckles at his brother’s joke, perhaps not for the first time, and turns to admire the phosphorescence shimmering in our wake.

The deck of a fishing boat speeding south into False Bay may be an unusual place to interview a chef, but I’d wager there’s no place Ryan Cole would rather be on his day off.

As the head chef of Salsify at The Roundhouse, hidden on the mountain slopes above the Atlantic seaboard, Ryan has risen up the fine-dining ranks at speed. At 30, he’s already notched up stages in Michelin-starred restaurants in London and he headed up The Test Kitchen team alongside Luke Dale Roberts. You are more likely to have seen him in chef ’s whites than a beanie and fishing gear.

But Ryan and Donavan have the ocean in their blood. Their father, Roy, was a commercial fisherman for nearly 20 years, which means Ryan was scrubbing decks and filleting fish aged eight. And Donavan has spent many years at sea: as a cadet on fishing trawlers, a diamond diver, a scientific observer, and a commercial fisherman. And most recently, running fishing charters on his 28-foot fishing boat out of Simons Town harbor.

Long hours, hard work and a crew pulling together under pressure. It’s a scene that could just as easily apply to a wind-whipped fishing vessel as an overheated restaurant kitchen. Those two worlds meet on the deck of the boat on Monday morning, with a few hours of fishing followed by a cook-what-you catch lunch at Donavan’s Glencairn home.