Three of the country's finest chefs

Margot Janse, Luke Dale-Roberts and Annette le Roux disliked the initial heat applied by mentors in Germany, Switzerland, London and Johannesburg, but could not abandon the kitchen in disgust. Thankfully, almost two decades later, the finished products are three culinary masters who are increasingly enthralling adoring local and international clients.

Had she not been rejected and dismissed by a panel of judges at a theatre school in Holland, and summoned to become an accidental tourist, Margot Janse might never have visited our shores. And South Africa possibly would have been denied the services of one of its most gifted chefs.

Her career in the kitchen started almost by default. At age 18, she auditioned for theatre school in Amsterdam, promisingly made it into the last 16, and saw a career as an actress beckon when two other students failed.

But then, disaster struck.

“We just feel you are a bit young,” said the panel.

“Go and see the world,” was their abrupt and sickening judgement.

Fast-forward to July 2010 and Janse, now the executive chef of Le Quartier Français, and her friend are on their way to the Fifa Soccer World Cup final after they featured in a duathlon in Knysna.

“I just decided to take a few days off to do a ‘Thelma and Louise’, so we’re off to the final between Holland and Spain,” said the affable Janse.

A few spectators with an affinity for fine dining in Franschhoek and an intimate knowledge of the best international eating places, would have recognised her as Janse of Le Quartier Français, which has featured in the top 50 of the world’s finest restaurants for six years.

In a way, Janse’s life does resemble Thelma and Louise. It has been an exhilarating ride, crossing international borders, experiencing new cultures, but fortunately without the fatal final chapter and the painful clashes with the men in uniform.

She left Holland armed with her little Olympus camera and followed her friend, a South African exiled journalist, to Zimbabwe.

“It was a culture shock, we had little money and my journalist friend was writing about the apartheid struggle. We got pass accreditation to cover the visit of Nelson Mandela to the ANC’s headquarters in Lusaka shortly after Madiba’s release in February 1990. “We did an interview with Walter Sisulu.

“Then we heard Madiba was having tea with a comrade in the township and I hid in small bushes at the side of the house to take photos of him.”

But the photographic ambush went awry when Mandela stopped and wanted to shake Janse’s hand. “I was so shocked, I stuffed it up. He completely blew me away,” she said.

Her first culinary master was Ciro Molinaro in Parktown North. “I worked double shifts for little money at his restaurants. It was a major shock to the system, but I loved it.

“When you have a passion for something, it is easy to learn. I was hungry for the knowledge,” added Janse.

From Gauteng, she joined the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay and left Cape Town as junior sous-chef to start at Le Quartier Français, which was voted Restaurant of the Year in 1995.

Janse joined the staff of the award-winning John Huxter, eager to learn. She had no idea how steep the learning curve would become, and six months later, Huxter left.

Janse had private thoughts of also leaving, but the owner offered her the job as executive chef.

“I would like you to take over. I believe in you. You can do it,” she told Janse.

Prophetic words, indeed.

Le Quartier Français has been among the top 50 restaurants in the world for six straight years, and has featured among the top 10 in South Africa almost without fail in the 21st century.

“My style has evolved over the past 15 years, constantly changing and improving. My philosophy is very home bound and Africa inspired,” said Janse.

“Here (in South Africa) is where it is happening. Why must we choose Asian ingredients?

“I have been working on brand South Africa for 20 years. We were trying to catch up with the rest of the world for a long time. And now we are refining what we have here.

“The Soccer World Cup has reinforced that we are good enough, and what we are producing is special,” she added.

“When people come here, I want them to experience more than a plate of food. They must taste Africa.”

What have been the ingredients of Janse’s culinary mastery? You will not find it in The Naked Chef.

“I have never been at a chef school, and have never been told that something is outright forbidden. I follow my own creative ideas. I don’t like the rule book,” she said.

“I like to improve the team. Something is never finished, never perfect. There are always a list of things that must be improved.

“Oh, yeah, and I hate boredom. Excitement is one of the key ingredients. It has to be exciting,” added Janse.

If Ferran Adrià of elBulli in Spain had known about Janse’s obsessive affair with perfectionism, he would not have slapped his hands in disbelief in 2009 after she was almost sliding out of the elitist top 50 group in the world.

The past two years have seen Le Quartier storming back to number 37 in 2009 and number 31 in 2010.

For Janse, it has been the exhilarating culmination of her life’s own Thelma and Louise story.

“It is like the Oscars; you step outside yourself and ask what is happening now? These are my [storybook] culinary heroes. How is it possible that I can be sitting among them and that they have become friends? I am talking about Ferran [previous number one in the world] and Heston Blumenthal. It feels unreal,” she said.

Luke Dale-Roberts

Luke Dale-Roberts of La Colombe at Constantia Uitsig is another South African chef who has rubbed shoulders with the legends. He made a cameo BBC appearance with Blumenthal, owner-chef of the multi-award winning The Fat Duck Restaurant after being voted as one of San Pellegrino’s 50 best worldwide restaurants in a leading United Kingdom restaurant magazine.

It is nothing new for the British-born Dale-Roberts, who was named Chef of the Year in 2008, and again in 2009 when La Colombe was crowned as South Africa’s Restaurant of the Year.

He did not slip quietly into the top 50. His was a barn-storming run from 38 in 2009 to being 12th in the world today.

Dale-Roberts’ first taste of the kitchen was at age 16. He applied to a college in Eastbourne, and got a job as kitchen porter at a local manor house. But his experience in the kitchen was brutally interrupted when he broke his leg in a motorbike accident.

With nothing to do at home, the bored teenager experimented with recipes from two cookery books, one by Raymond Blanc and the other titled, Take Six Cooks.

After college, his first job was at Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich, one of the finest hotels in the world.

The Spanish chef, Roberto, was a hard taskmaster. He spoke Swiss-German, while Dale-Roberts at the time was only acquainted with French.

He disliked the loud-mouthed Brit. “He gave me trouble every single day,” said Dale-Roberts. “It was good, for Roberto taught me discipline and speed. Within months, I had to run a full section by myself.

“It was an intense experience. Within a year, I was a different person and had made the jump to adulthood.”

He met his future wife, Sandalene, who worked as a waitress at the Baur au Lac Hotel. Within six months, they were married.

Sandalene has been a major influence ever since. “She is a big inspiration. She is very determined, very smart, and is my most opinionated critic. When she speaks about food, I take notice. She has a brilliant palate,” said Dale-Roberts.

He served another stormy apprenticeship under Kevin Hopgood, who did not suffer fools gladly.

He was on holiday when Dale-Roberts was appointed. Upon his return, the new junior sous-chef had to endure heavy criticism on a daily basis. “He broke me down to nothing, but then rebuilt me as a true chef and taught me the fine details,” said Dale-Roberts.

Back in London, his first position as chief executive chef was at The Loft, part of the Accor Hotel Group, by whom he was invited to open its signature concept restaurant in Asia.

Thereafter, Accor sent him to open a modern French bistro in Seoul.

Continuing in Seoul, Dale-Roberts later worked with top Japanese chefs from Tokyo’s famous Shunji group to launch Shune, a modern Japanese dining concept. (Source: WINE Magazine, March 2010).

He started in La Colombe in 2006. It was in good hands under the gifted Franck Dangereux, but soared under Dale-Roberts. He developed his own menu and style from scratch.

During the high season, 95% of his clientele are overseas visitors, and 5% are locals. “But I don’t think about that when I cook. If the food is good, it will be enjoyed similarly by locals or foreigners.

“You should not push yourself in a direction because of a clientele’s needs. Then you are not cooking from you heart, but as if under a kind of a concept, or a brief,” said Dale-Roberts.

“I don’t copy people. That is so irritating; it really annoys me endlessly.”

He subscribes to the belief that food is art. “Whenever you elevate a craft to a certain level, where you invest much of your emotion and time into it and you try to squeeze the most out of what you have in front of you, and come up with something that is unexpected – that becomes art.”

At Constantia Uitsig, Dale-Roberts started to build a team that shared his vision. “The team must be the best they can, and you must excite them with new stuff. They should never be bored; they must keep evolving and develop new things.”

An executive chef must instil “a bit of fear” in the kitchen. His staff knows that he will not tolerate mediocrity. He will not have them around for a long time if they do not demonstrate 100% commitment.

“You have to instil a culture in which they are trying their very best to improve,” says La Colombe’s award-winning culinary master.

When Dale-Roberts arrived, he experimented with French cuisine, with some Asian influence. Now he is exploring new spices all the time.

He has enthralled many visitors, among them Hollywood actor Robert de Niro, who described his dinner at La Colombe as one of the 10 best meals of his life.

Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, might have had a similar experience, but the dreaded “full house” sign was up when he walked into La Colombe recently. So he had to seek culinary satisfaction elsewhere…

Annette le Roux

Packed tables, famous faces and disappointed lead singers were not uncommon features during the tenure of Annette le Roux as owner-chef at Jemima’s Restaurant in the Little Karoo, 430 kilometres from La Colombe.

The award-winning poet and writer Breyten Breytenbach once sought Le Roux’s presence at his table to express his joy with his meal.

His delight was shared by the judges of Eat Out, South Africa’s culinary bible, as Jemima’s featured prominently among the top-10 restaurants in South Africa for three years in a row when Le Roux, the presiding executive chef, and her sister Celia (front of house) presided over this Oudtshoorn-based eating place.

Le Roux, like Dale-Roberts and Janse, richly benefited from cultural influences on different continents during her formative years to become one of South Africa’s premier chefs.

Her parents, Swepie and Ann le Roux, owners of the farm Doornkraal, inspired a book A Farm In My Heart, on recipes, farm life and the culinary culture of their Little Karoo haven.

Years earlier, at age 24, Le Roux travelled to Germany as a temporary au pair. She wanted to stay on, but could only extend a tourist visa if it could be proven to the immigration officer that her stay would be beneficial to the German economy.

When the official asked her the reason of extending her stay, the only name she could see from the immigration office was the flashing sign on top of the Ramada Hotel. Her impromptu answer to the official was that she wanted to be a hotel chef.

“I will never forget the morning, shortly after five, when I walked into the industrial kitchen [of the Ramada] for the first time. It was a hive of activity and all I could see were men shouting and sweating while preparing breakfast for 600 guests,” reminisced Le Roux.

After completing a year at the Ramada Hotel, she moved to the Hotel Deidesheimer Hof in the idyllic Pfalz. There she worked under Manfred Schwarz, who was arguably one of the most famous chefs in the world and the favourite of the Bundeskanzler Helmut Köhl at the time.

“These experiences – to work with true professionals – were most important in my career as a chef, and without them I would never have had the discipline and structure necessary to function under pressure in a kitchen,” said Le Roux.

Later culinary apprenticeships on Doornkraal and at Parks Restaurant in Constantia served her well at Jemima’s and extended to The Glen Affric Estate in the Highlands of Scotland and the Eden Rock Hotel in St. Barths, French West Indies.

A visiting Russian billionaire and his wife were so taken with Le Roux that they offered her a summer job at one of their properties in the South of France. Currently, she migrates between the Scottish Highlands, the French West Indies and the Cote d’Azur.

Would Le Roux venture into the enticing world of celebrity chefs, by hosting a television show in the kitchen? The witty South African is quick to respond (humbly and tongue in cheek): “I don’t know about TV shows. Remember that saying that someone has a better face for radio? That’s me.”

Dale-Roberts says he has always stayed true to his essence, and when he has strayed away from his creative side in the kitchen, it has haunted him. “I am not adverse to anything (even TV shows), as long as it does not take away from what I love, and that is cooking.”

Perhaps food masters such as Janse, Le Roux and Dale-Roberts would do wonders for specific food sales in South Africa if they showcased their considerable talent on local TV.

Why? Consider this: In 2001, the phrase “Delia effect” was included in a mainstream British dictionary, according to the BBC News Magazine.

It described the phenomenon by which UK supermarket shelves were suddenly emptied of particular items featured on Delia Smith’s TV programmes.

Whether it was cranberries, vegetable bouillon powder or pestles and mortars, the phenomenon suggested that celebrity chefs could have a powerful influence on our eating habits.

It was not restricted to Smith. Jamie Oliver was able to create a surge in demand for goose fat after he used it to make crispy roast potatoes.

So, too, did Nigella Lawson, advocating it as a Christmas essential.

The popularity of celebrity chefs has coincided with the dramatic decline in home cooking, according to TIME magazine. Which also explains why, in America, restaurant food sales have jumped from $42.8 billion in 1970 to a projected $520bn in 2010.

There is little reason TV chefs in South Africa may not have a dramatic effect on the local restaurant food industry.

De Niro and Breytenbach would concur…▲

Fanie Heyns