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Dining jumps from fine to quirky in the inner city, home to
the legendary Gramadoelas, where everyone who is anyone has eaten.
THE CBD has been littered with fast-food takeaways since the
big chains set up shop for a captive audience. For some time, office workers
and residents have had a narrow choice: should it be KFC for lunch, or Nando's,
Steers or King Pie?
On fine days you can lunch in a grassy courtyard at The Canteen
But gentrification is afoot. It has taken hold at the west
end of the CBD and is just beginning in the east. For those who know where to
look, there are places in the inner city where one can eat well.
On the far east side is Arts on Main.
Once a collection of warehouses, Arts on Main
now houses painters' studios, art galleries, venues for conferences, an arts
bookshop and other related businesses - including an excellent restaurant
called The Canteen.
On fine days, one can lunch in a grassy courtyard under
young olive and lemon trees; there is also plenty of room inside in premises
decorated with prints from Bailey's African History Archives, another Arts on
Main tenant.
Prices are low. The most expensive breakfast, with egg, lamb
sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomato and toast runs to R30, and a luncheon dish of
smoked springbok carpaccio with capers and parma ham is R45. There are open sandwiches,
salads, main courses like a roast beef dunk - and possibly the best sticky
ginger toffee pudding one can find anywhere.
In the middle of the CBD is a gourmet Chinese takeaway, run
by prominent restaurateur Jaco Welgemoed, who previously developed such fine
dining establishments as Orient in Melrose Arch and Cite in Dunkeld. Lucky Moo,
on Gandhi Square,
offers superb Chinese food at fast-food prices. Its version of spring roll, for
example, is light, crisp pastry wrapped around a slightly curried filling, and
Lucky Moo's mushroom chicken has a touch of cinnamon. Big sellers are Mongolian
beef and kung pao prawns, beef and chicken.
Welgemoed says he's fallen in love with the CBD. "Town is
just exploding," he says. "The energy is here." Customers phone, email or fax
their orders, or stroll over, pull up an orange seat and have a meal in the
shop. Welgemoed is planning to franchise it; meanwhile, for the first time in
two decades, he can go home when the sun goes down.
Hotels
Moving west, you'll find two restaurants that can't close at sundown because
they're situated in hotels. The Mapungubwe Hotel was once the French Bank, and
the Ashanti Hotel, diagonally across the road, housed lawyers' offices. Both
are now hybrid hotel/apartments, and both have interesting restaurants.
You'll find Darkie Cafe in the Ashanti Hotel
Twist, in the Mapungubwe, is the more elegant of the two.
Its menu is largely upmarket, with game dishes, Scottish salmon carpaccio, two
kinds of risotto - one with pea foam - rump steak, slow roast pork belly with
cider, sage and mustard seed, and its biggest seller, oxtail, marinated in red
wine and whisky. The oxtail costs R115, but one can also order a hamburger with
bacon, cheese and mustard for half the price.
The restaurant is beautifully decorated, with black
chandeliers, tall boxed lamps covered in cream-coloured cloth embossed with black
velvet loeries, and pillars of stacked, chopped slasto to remind one of the
ancient kingdom after which the hotel is named. Parking is in two garages under
the hotel, and downstairs is The Vault, a bar lounge often rented out for
private parties.
The Darkie Cafe, in the Ashanti Hotel, is also beautifully
designed - chandeliers dripping with crystals, a plush white banquette, a
mirrored bar, a wonderful deck where you can dine overlooking a cul-de-sac
where you might find parking. But it is otherwise very different from Twist: it
is informal, with a sense of fun, the prices are very reasonable, and the menu
runs to items like "homemade gemmer (ginger beer) made to magogo's recipe",
samp and beans, morogo, frikkadels and chakalaka.
The risotto here is samp, with butternut and spinach, and
there is chilli on the steak, on a sandwich of mince, ham and slap chips and
even on smoked tofu. A big seller is pita with chicken livers, with a touch of
chilli and mozzarella cheese.
Newtown
It's a short drive to Newtown,
where Sophiatown is the place to be if you're in the market for a whole baby
chicken or slowly roasted lamb shank, a dish of mogodu (tripe) "served the
traditional way", or just a hamburger or an ostrich burger with a salad and
chips.
There's live music on Friday and Saturday nights at Sophiatown
The prices are similar to those at Twist - from R125 for massive meat
portions, down to R55 for tripe or hamburgers, and even less for tramezzini. Parking
is on Mary Fitzgerald Square,
a few steps away.
There's live music on Friday and Saturday nights, when a
joyous, jolling atmosphere fills the place. Inside, the walls display Jürgen
Schadeberg's Drum magazine photographs from the 1950s, and there's good South
African jazz in the background. Sophiatown has tables outside as well, and a
private room for private parties. It's not the place to go if you've got to be
at the theatre across the square at any particular time, however; the service
is somewhat relaxed.
It is impossible to think of dining in Johannesburg without mentioning Gramadoelas. The world
has dined here - royalty, heads of government, rock stars - the guest book
includes the names of nearly every dignitary who has visited the city in the
past three decades. Chef Brian Shalkoff was called upon to do buffets so often
for celebrations that he now does them every weeknight except Sunday, when the
restaurant is shut, and Monday night, when the Market Theatre, whose premises
Gramadoelas shares, is dark.
During the day, it's a la carte. Prices can be as high as
R125 for beef fillet or kingklip with spicy tamarind coconut sauce and as low
as R50 for mulligatawny.
The menu, devised by Shalkoff and partner Eduan Naude, is an
introduction to South African and African specialities such as snoek pie,
bobotie, Moroccan lamb tagine, on to morogo and superb mielie bread, ostrich
casserole in red wine with onions, olives and mushrooms, Ethiopian doro wot
(chicken in a rich pepper sauce) and Senegalese roast onion and lemon chicken.
The legendary Gramadoelas in Newtown
The malva poeding, milktert and especially Cape
brandy pudding are legendary.
So is the décor - art and artefacts from all over South
Africa and much of the continent, collected over a lifetime or two, cover the
walls and every available surface. Service is caring, and swift - useful if
you've come in for dinner before a show. Try to book a table in the bay window
overlooking the broad walkway between the theatre and the shops opposite.
Braamfontein
Over the Nelson Mandela Bridge
is Braamfontein, which offers a jump from fine dining to quirky.
Quirky is the Café de la Vie, where you can order anything
from a reasonably priced prego roll to a full-on curry, fish and chips or warm
beef salad while sitting on - or under - an eclectic collection of comfortable
chairs. It's a combination restaurant and furniture shop featuring antiques and
collectables, where nearly everything is for sale - from the carved marble
plinth that serves as a doorstop to the 70s chairs on platforms around the
room, the beautiful crockery, pewter and silver pitchers in a glass-fronted
cabinet - even the cabinet.
Owner Deon Jacobs was a caterer turned art deco furniture
dealer when he decided to combine the two. The restaurant is unmissable - it's
painted lime green - and plans are in hand to open a hatch on to the pavement
for serving sandwiches. Meanwhile, there's the main room and a plant-filled
patio in the back, where ivy is just beginning to make its way along the struts
holding up the shade cloth.
Narina Trogon is a feast for the eyes and the palate, with
fine food served in elegant surroundings. Ingredients are locally sourced:
chickens are free-range; beef comes from cows raised in the Midlands
and put out to graze on indigenous grasses. The coffee is fair trade Ethiopian,
locally roasted. Bread is baked on the premises.
Narina Trogon is a feast for the eyes and the palate
It's a light menu, by and large: pea and mint soup, fish
cakes made with fresh linefish, spinach and feta pie, quiche and salad, or a
burger with caramelised red onion and avocado relish. There's also a range of
sandwiches. But you can order grilled lamb kebabs or a sirloin and chips as
well.
Breakfast includes a full English or the Mediterranean
- haloumi cheese, tomato relish, yoghurt, caramelised onion, grilled mushrooms.
It is all extremely delicious. Prices range from R65 for a burger to R115 for grilled
lamb kebabs, with pesto on hand-rolled fettuccine or quiche and salad at R40.
The minimalist décor is based on the colourful bird the
restaurant is named for, so there are pale green glass doors and a deep red
bar. Floor to ceiling glass windows give a view of the street, and there's a
wheelchair lift at the entrance. Upstairs is a venue regularly booked out for
private parties. It is a tribute to Narina Trogon's cuisine and ambiance that
the restaurant has thrived despite a lack of parking - the nearest off-street
garage is Arbour Square,
a block and a half away.
Listings
The Canteen at Arts on Main
245 Main Street (corner Berea)
City and Suburban
083 399 9740
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Breakfast, lunch and dinner on Thursday to Saturday; breakfast and lunch on Tuesday,
Wednesday and Sunday
Lucky Moo
Gandhi Square
011
492 0628
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Open all day Monday to Friday and on Saturday until 12 noon
Twist
Mapungubwe Hotel
50-54 Ferreira Street
(corners Anderson and Marshall)
011 838 8128
Open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Darkie Café
Ashanti Hotel
10 Anderson Street
011 492 1556
Breakfast, lunch and dinner on Monday to Saturday; open on Friday and Saturday
nights until midnight
Sophiatown
Central Place
Corner Jeppe and Henry Nxumalo
streets
Newtown
011 836 5999
Open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Gramadoelas
Market Theatre complex
Newtown
011 838 6960
Open for lunch and dinner on Tuesday to Saturday; dinner only on Monday
Café de la
Vie
6 De Beer Street (between Juta and Smit)
Braamfontein
011 403 9805
Open for breakfast and lunch on Monday to Friday
Narina
Trogon
81 De Korte Street
Braamfontein
011 339 6645
Open for breakfast and lunch on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; for breakfast,
lunch and dinner on Wednesday and Friday; for brunch and dinner on Saturday
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