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Johannesburg Dining And Drinking
Walk up to most Johannesburg restaurants and you'll see waiters scurrying about, hear cutlery clinking, the hubbub and laughter billowing out of the door, almost tangible. Dining out is a special, social occasion here, and of the approximately three hours we spend in a restaurant, only 30 minutes is on actually eating.
So, is the quality of the food not important to Johannesburg diners? Oh, it certainly is, but locals also demand the full, theatrical production. As a local magazine editor said, "local is not only lekker (nice, tasty, enjoyable), but also intelligent, witty and sophisticated."
Like it's big brother, Johannesburg has become the city of the eatery. Whether you're hanging out with friends, having an extended Saturday lunch at Cornutti in Illovo or you have to impress a prospective business partner at The Courier in leafy Parkview, Manhattan-in-the-veld has it all.
From ethnic to international to fusion, there's a range of places exactly for you here, just waiting to tantalise your tastebuds.
Even the "impressing" level offers a range. Do you want an expensive, formal place like Le Canard? Or go for Vilamoura, where the seafood receives top marks, as do the prices. The place is carefully designed to be seriously slick, buzzy and a must on the itinerary of many international celebs visiting sunny South Africa.
One of the most popular pastimes in Jaytown is doing coffee or lunch at a sidewalk café in one of the pretty, leafy suburbs, like Café Flo in Greenside or Sam's Café in trendy Melville, where foreign journalists in the know, eat at least once.
One of the quirks of this place is that, in a city that sees more sun than most in the world, we also have the most extensive shopping centres. This allows us, not unlike moles, to burrow for hours on end, shopping, dining and promenading down make-believe streets as if in some subterranean city.
So you could even choose an ersatz sidewalk in the middle of what is probably the southern hemisphere's largest shopping centres, Sandton City, where you'll find Ciao Baby Cucina. There's also Steffanie's in the swish shopping centre of Hyde Park. Steffanie's is one of the classic eateries to which one regularly returns, to people-watch and do the quick business lunch or brunch thing with buddies on the weekend.
"I know Johannesburg diners are demanding and that's why my restaurants are about people," says Naldo Goncalves. He'd know. His Vilamoura success story is legendary. From the original small suburban venue (where queues immediately went out the door), to Sandton, Rosebank, Pretoria and Camps Bay in Cape Town, the joint is jumping.
Seafood is big in Jo'Burg and it is often linked with Portuguese cuisine (as is Vilamoura). From the humble suburban eatery to Beira Alta in the Colony shopping centre in Rivonia, there is a good range of truly excellent places to go to.
But, there are also plenty of other specialities to be found. The lemon-herb chicken at The Butcher Shop and Grill in Sandton Square is one of the best in town, but sublime chicken can be found at the Italian restaurant, Mastrantonio, also in Sandton Square, and of course, it helps that the owners and waiters are all gorgeous and charming. The Mastrantonio guys seem to have discovered the secrets of creating theatre for their diners. And they're definitely doing something right: from their small beginnings in Illovo, they now have three restaurants across Johannesburg.
People from Jo'Burg are also big on meat. The steakhouse of the 60s, 70s and 80s is now out of fashion, but takeaway hamburger joints abound. But if your preference is real, good meat (from freshly ground top-range beef for your hamburgers to a personally chosen piece of fillet for a melt-in-the-mouth taste experience) a number of good restaurants offer this. For first prize choose Carnivore.
The Singing Fig in Norwood (one of the older suburbs, now with its shopping street further up the road from The Singing Fig lined with Italian coffee shops and eateries) does what is reputed to be the best oxtail in town. But the local editor of the international Marie Claire magazine says she goes to the Singing Fig for the duck: "It's the way I like it?very rich, tangy and served in huge portions. Even though the place gets noisy, I'm always excited about going there."
If your prefered cuisine is French, the sadly few (pricey) restaurants on offer range from the award-winning Ile de France Randburg to the stuffy but excellent Le Canard in Sandton.
Gauteng's multi-cultural population has also produced a wide range of traditional foods found nowhere else in the world. Local food specialities can be both innovative and unusual from African phutu (maize meal porridge) at Wandi's in Soweto to Afrikaner potjiekos (stew cooked in a three-legged iron pot on an open fire) at Gramadoelas in the Market Theatre precinct.
It's a pity that weekend brunches aren't as big as they could be, but there are a number of places that are good, like the News Café in Rivonia. Many hotels, like The Grace in Rosebank or the Balalaika next to Village Walk shopping centre, also offer scrumptious fare.
However, if you're a motor biker, the breakfast run (leap out of bed at dawn, ride like hell for an hour or so, stop for brunch, come home) is really big. There are almost countless places within an hour's drive that serve anything from eggs and slap chips (French fries) to a really good feast.
Gianni Mariano, one of the founders of Mastrantonio says, "the key issue about Johannesburgers is that they are keen diners?and they demand high-quality food."
G. Mathias |
