Barbara Ludman and Mungo Soggot LIFESTYLE
Not so long ago, Greenside+s main shopping parade was known not for haute cuisine but for several antique shops, the Spar, Woolworths and -the doggy stylist+. The suburb, however, is currently undergoing something of a gastronomic renaissance, with three new restaurants replacing the late lamented Pizzaghetti and keeping company with Al+s Gourmet Chicken. And there are two more restaurants to come. The people pulling off this invasion include some of Johannesburg+s best-known restaurateurs. If it works, Greenside could become an agreeable – and hopefully less pretentious – alternative to Melville and Parkhurst.
It all began in January with Biscotti Espresso Bar, a quaint coffee bar and restaurant that started with a modest collection of pasta dishes, but has since expanded its menu to include Italian-style lamb shank, oxtail, chicken curry and chicken in red wine sauce. The pasta dishes are excellent, much of the pasta being bought from a mother-and-son home enterprise. Highlights are the mushroom soup, the baked chicken breasts on tagliatelle, and mushroom ravioli. In the eight months since it has opened, the food has always been fresh, and the service relaxed, if occasionally a little slow. The restaurant seats only 25 people, which can make it rather cosy on a busy night. One of its most endearing features is that you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the toilets – a sure sign that the kitchen is to be taken seriously. Biscotti also does great breakfasts. Owner-manager Grant Ravenscroft is building a sushi bar across the road, but has assured regulars that he will retain a stake in Biscotti. As with Biscotti, the brains behind the food at the sushi bar will be his sister, Anne Rich – who trained in Paris – and a sushi chef whom Ravenscroft is trying to poach from another Japanese restaurant. A couple of months after Biscotti arrived, Ravenscroft+s friend Tim Alcock opened Caf Flo next door. It+s been pretty full ever since.
Alcock, of Mea Culpa (Rosebank) and Mezzo (Norwood) fame – he co-owned both, serially sold up and moved on – has seen to it that the menu has the best of each. There were regulars at Mea Culpa who went just for the glorious pizzas, with paper-thin crusts and bizarre toppings – goat+s cheese, roasted peppers, grilled aubergine and sun-dried tomatoes is one example. They+re on Flo+s menu. So – along with pasta and various forms of Indonesian stir-fry – are spicy Thai prawn soup and fish cakes. Alcock said he+d intended restricting offerings to pizza and pasta, but people started asking for the dishes they+d had at Mezzo and so the menu grew. He was one of the first to move to Norwood and – now that it+s overtraded, with too many restaurants of varying quality – is one of the first to flee. He has high hopes that Greenside will be different, based on the difficulty he and Ravencroft had in finding premises. Nobody wanted to rent to restaurants. The Circle – the newest arrival – moved into a defunct Portuguese restaurant. Its opening puts a gastronomic imprimatur on the area. The Circle is owned by The Singing Fig+s Jaco Welgemoed and Ian Mills, who will shuttle between the two. Welgemoed once co-owned Bougainvilea, then became involved in Linger Longer and Cranks before he teamed up with Mills to open one of the great success stories of Jo+burg restaurants, The Singing Fig, at the wrong end of Grant Avenue in Norwood. New restaurants – even those run by old hands- should be given at least a couple of months to settle in, so as far as The Circle is concerned, this isn+t a review, more a news brief. Welgemoed describes the style as -French comfort food+, although after the grilled beef with Dijon and tarragon hollandaise the menu veers strongly into fusion: spiced lamb shank with pomegranate, for example, and duck with seven spices. Salads aren+t The Circle+s forte, any more than they were the Fig+s; one wonder why they bother. But even this early on, the soups, especially the roast red pepper and brinjal, are superb. There are chocolate truffles at the end of the meal instead of the Fig+s friandises and at the beginning rolls in brown paper bags and little dishes of olive oil (of course), balsamic vinegar and a marvellous green olive tapenade. The chef is Capetonian Corne Carstans and the desserts are as fabulous as the Fig+s.
Around the corner from Flo and Biscotti is Paolo+s, which moved from Braamfontein long before the new kids on the block arrived. It+s a reliable, old-fashioned Italian restaurant, which suffers from being off the main road – and from a strikingly sombre decor. With any luck, it too will cash in on the Greenside boom. That said, none of them will go far if they don+t do something about parking at lunchtime. The meters are manned by some of the most tenacious traffic officers south of the Limpopo. Biscotti, 116 Greenway, Greenside, Tel: (011) 486 4576; Caf Flo, 116 Greenway, Tel: (011) 646 6817; The Circle, 141 Greenway, Tel: (011) 646 3744/7240