Kelp is essential to oceans, providing a habitat for numerous marine life and keeping the ocean clean by trapping carbon. It's also long been a part of Asian cuisine, but now a chef in Cape Town is turning seaweed into a gastronomic experience.

Cape Town

Chef Phil Mansurg sources kelp from the southern peninsula of Cape Town, highlighting its nutritional value and versatility as a food ingredient. Experts note that the local kelp forest is among the healthiest in the world, offering a rich source of minerals and vitamins, and its use in cuisine is expanding beyond traditional Asian markets.

At his restaurant, The Kelp Shack, Mansurg serves dishes such as sea bamboo stuffed with rice and kelp pâté to introduce diners to the diverse flavors of kelp. Opened in 2018, the restaurant operates off-grid and relies on word of mouth and social media for promotion, with visitors expressing surprise at the range of tastes kelp can provide.

Kelp forest off Cape Town provides inspiration for local chef

Here in the waters of Cape Town's southern peninsula, Chef Phil Mansurg is stocking up on supplies. But he hasn't come for fish. He's here for the vast kelp forest that lies beneath the waves. Well, what's cool about kelp is that there's a lot of it that grows on our coastline. It's highly nutritious. It's a great substitute for pasta. And it's super versatile. It's super versatile. And it doesn't taste anything like you think it might. It's quite neutral. According to local experts, the kelp forest off Cape Town is one of the healthiest and most resilient in the world, fertilised by nutrients from the depths of the ocean. And it also makes for a healthy snack. Seaweeds are very good nutritionally. They don't have an awful lot of protein and not an awful lot of fats, lipids, although they have good lipids. But they're full of minerals. They're full of vitamins. There are lots of things. The sea has all sorts of trace elements that seaweeds take up. So they're very good for people, although only in Asia in the past have people eaten seaweed in a large way. But it's spreading into the western world. And Mansurg is leading the way at his off-grid restaurant, The Kelp Shack. From hollowed out sea bamboo stuffed with rice to kelp pâté and fermented crudités, his aim is to create beautiful, great tasting dishes that will change people's perception of kelp. So this was my first time trying something like this with kelp as the main ingredient throughout all the dishes. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a complete surprise because I definitely thought it would be mostly seaweed tasting and fish tasting. But it was just a whole profile of different flavours. Mansurg opened The Kelp Shack in 2018. It operates on word of mouth and online sites like Instagram.

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