Chef Wandile Mabaso cooking for me at his fine dining gem Les Créatifs Restaurant in Bryanston, Johannesburg, is a gastronomic delight that will never get old.
This marks the third time I’ve dined at the high-end restaurant where an upscale wine list meets gourmet menu, elegant décor and luxurious local artwork. Yet, it feels like my first-time with this fluttering sensation in my stomach.
Tucked away inconspicuously in a nondescript corner on the second floor of Hobart Grove Centre, you will be forgiven for not thinking this is the locale where a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience occurs. Then, I step inside and suddenly muscle memory kicks in, surely this is what heaven looks and feels like – small, intimate, sophisticated and breathtaking.
There are only two long banquet tables with less than 30 diners. After sitting down, I learn that it’s a special night for two reasons. The first is that Les Créatifs opened its doors exactly six years ago (August 15). The Soweto-born dynamo with international experience working at Michelin star restaurants in New York and Paris in the last six years has hosted big names from President Cyril Ramaphosa to Hollywood stars Kelly Rowland and Gabrielle Union.
The second? There is a guest chef tonight. As part of the Afrique Moderne series, chef Katlego Mlambo and Mabaso are about to take us on a culinary ride.
“Tonight is very special, it’s the third of our series called Afrique Moderne, all about modernised African cuisines, which is what you will taste tonight,” Mabaso announces. “This is us using what we have learnt from the Western cooking culture, predominantly French, and using that to elevate our [home-grown] cuisines.
"Looking at the food we grew up eating in the township, food that people look down on and food that are not served in high-end restaurants. We want to debunk that and show that we can also champion our own food and flavours. We are using food as a medium to tell our own stories the way we want them to be told.”
Mlambo echoes his words: “I’m very excited to what we are celebrating tonight. A lot of people tend to think they know what African cuisine is, but don’t know yet. The French uses a lot of butter and cream. The Italians are known for their pastas. But what is South African cuisine?”
In front of me is a eight-course menu that Mabaso and Mlambo have curated and collaborated on. Mabaso introduces the first plate, dubbed the “conception – wild chicken broth”, which is an opening ritual served to anyone who dines there.
“We have a hard body chicken that we cooked for 48 hours. We call this the Mamelodi chicken because we get it from Mamelodi, we are not scarred to say that. We cook it for two days, it’s known as a consommé in French term, it’s a clean broth with salt, pepper and fresh herbs,” Mabaso explains.
“At the bottom, it’s sitting on a bed of corn. Around it, the nest is called impepho and that’s what we use to burn to welcome people by getting rid of bad energy and to speak to our ancestors to give thanks too.
“We take that egg from the same farm as the chicken, we drill the egg [shell] open and suck out the egg contents using a syringe. Then we sanitise that eggshell and then after cooking the broth for 48 hours, we put it back into that egg. Then in the centre you have the chicken coming from the same hard body. We rest [it] off over night, dry it and we cook it skin down.”
Sipping the broth from the eggshell through a miniature straw I can taste every note, lyric and flavour profile of the hard body, it’s like poetry in the mouth.
Another mouthwatering highlight was the Delmas duck. “For our dishes we name it after the main ingredient, which is usually the main protein,” Mabaso says.
“The reason we do that is because we have seen it a lot in Europe, but all we have here is the Karoo lamb. So what we do is try to find the best product in the country and make it after that region. This is the best duck and hopefully one day it ends up being called Delmas duck globally.”
The goat plate served in a pottery bowl won best presentation with the earthy tones paying homage to Africa’s stunning landscapes like safari, Savanna and desert.
“The goat we used is from Krugersdorp. It’s goat cooked for eight hours – slow cook. We don’t boil it in water or at all. We simmer it in tomato juice,” Mabaso says.
“We add garlic, ginger and onion, then let it simmer. When I say simmer, it’s literally one bubble per minute. We then cool it down for three hours in the same liquid. Whenever you are taking meat out of liquid and you see the steam coming out, just know that you are losing the moisture of that meat. So leave it there.”
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