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Main Ingredient Eat In Guide Outstanding Outlet Award Winner 2006,2007 & 2008 Shop 5, Nedbank Centre, 15 Kloof Rd, Sea Point 8005 Cape Town, South Africa Phone : +27 21 439 5160 Fax: 086 604 5169 Main Ingredient on a Saturday morning: Lynne giving a customer a taste of something good and Jacquie from Kathy Raath Promotions showing off wines from Rudera
Finding that Main Ingredient If you love food, living in South Africa can sometimes be a challenge. We don’t yet have access to all the exciting ingredients and products that we all see in recipe books or on the food programmes. But things are changing. Main Ingredient was set up in 2002 to fulfil that need, to find the best and most unusual ingredients customers were looking for and put them in one shop. Over the last seven years our business has expanded a great deal and now suppliers find us with their new and innovative products. We sell salts, spices, preserves, vinegars, sauces, flours, chocolate, ready-to-bake frozen croissants, wines, luxury goods such as pates, duck fat, truffles: fresh to order, in jars, in oil; tins of duck confit, the best vanilla products and other real flavour extracts (we wont sell fake essences or food colourings). In addition to some excellent South African products like Protea Hill Farm’s wonderful herb and fruit vinegars and superb chutneys and relishes, we sell delicacies from Spain, Italy, France, England, the Mediterranean, Middle and Far East, even the Americas.
Our customer base is food and wine lovers from all over South Africa and they come and visit us whenever they are in Cape Town. We can post small items to destinations all over Southern Africa and other countries as well. We have many loyal foreign customers, some of whom are ‘swallows’ who live here for a few months each year and they bring us new ideas as well as their custom. We don’t sell the same things as the supermarkets, but we do sell what they don’t, won’t or can’t sell. We could never compete with their prices, so we try to be different and innovative. We watch cooking and eating trends and try to anticipate them by finding the ingredients first – or getting someone local and talented to produce them. Our boutique wine list is different, unusual and is based on taste. We believe in showcasing the best wines and winemakers South Africa has. You won’t find many of these wines in supermarkets. Our choices are at all price levels, we taste everything we sell and if we think you will like it, we put it in the shop. Each Saturday we have a free wine tasting from 10 to 1. It has become a very social event. And every Saturday the Wolsey Country Girls bring their home produce to the pavement outside our shop from 9.30 to 1. They have freshly baked quiches, free range eggs, preserves, and pastries amongst many other seasonal things.
If you come to visit us, you will find just the two of us in the shop. We are a 'Mom and Pop' shop and we pride ourselves on our personal service and our interest in the needs of our customers. We will try and find things for you. We also have a huge network of food sources so we can often advise you where to find things that we dont sell. And Lynne is happy to give advice on how to use and cook ingredients. You might enjoy getting our weekly newsletter which gives you information on our new products and how to use them, a recipe each week using those ingredients, a beautiful photograph, food and festival news, restaurant reviews, lists of restaurant specials, comments about what is going on in the food industry (not always complimentary as we do believe in speaking out) and wine news and advice.  We are at Shop 5 Nedbank Centre, 15 Kloof Road, Sea Point – right where Main Road becomes Kloof and Regent Road, near all the banks. Our hours are 10 to 6 Monday to Friday and 10 to 1 on Saturdays. We do not open on Sundays because current legislation prevents us from selling wine on Sundays, and, anyway, we need a day off once a week! To get our publication MENU by email each week either: Phone us on 21 439 5169 or send an email to
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This week’s edition is on this website. We look forward to meeting you. Lynne and John Ford |
