Ivor Jones is the chef/patron of Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa. Open since 2016, “Beau” has been consistently lauded as one of South Africa’s best restaurants by critics, diners and industry peers alike, and continues to be a hot dining destination for local and international guests.
As a chef, Jones is thoughtful, playful and adventurous, inspired by a cache of memories, taste and travel experiences in Southeast Asia. He’s always looking for maximum flavour, for a new riff on an old classic, for something to make an ordinary ingredient pop or put a spotlight on the unusual.
Some of his iconic dishes include We Eat With Our Hands Tartare, with steamed seed-encrusted amadombolo buns; coal-seared yellowfin tuna with Balinese mint sambal matah, toasted yeast dressing and coconut paper; Siqokelele [meaning We Gather in Xhosa] which is a savoury feuillette of duck liver parfait, barbequed porcini mushroom emulsion, bramble jellies and other autumnal finds; and Yellowtail with BBQ Southeast Asian dressing and frozen coconut.
Southeast Asian flavours and ingredients figure large in Jones’ dishes, although he’s open to any combination of ingredient and technique that zings the senses. His consideration of all factors above and beyond how a dish tastes – how it looks, how it’s served, what crockery and cutlery best accompanies it – make the dining experience at Beau rich and memorable.
Jones’s culinary path began at Cape Town’s prestigious La Colombe, where he worked for four years with chef Luke Dale Roberts, who is now considered one of South Africa’s greatest chefs, and later at Dale Roberts’ The Test Kitchen – which became an iconic internationally lauded restaurant.
After nine extraordinary years of life-changing learning with Dale Roberts and a whirlwind of other talented chefs in his brigade, Ivor was approached by chef and restaurateur Liam Tomlin of Chefs Warehouse, a game-changing restaurant in Cape Town’s CBD. Looking to take over the restaurant at Beau Constantia – a breathtaking winery setting overlooking the Constantia Wine Valley -- Liam needed a strong working partner. It was exactly the challenge and ownership Ivor was looking for, along with the opportunity to create his own culinary style and footprint.
Known not just for his creativity, Jones is also committed to nurturing and training South Africa’s next generation of chefs. He is a mentor to many in his own kitchen and with the Chefs Warehouse group, has run a successful Internship Programme for unskilled youth from disadvantaged backgrounds.
