David Shapshak
food
A caterer girlfriend of mine once asked what traditional Jewish dish she could put on a menu. “Pasta,” I replied. In the northern suburb shtetl that I hail from, pasta is as commonplace a meal as it is in Italy.
The same goes for Italian restaurants neither owned nor staffed by Italians. There is, of course, the thankful exception. I learnt about good Italian food going to school in the melting pot of Highlands North High, which was seamlessly multi-cultural, albeit not multiracial, in the 1980s. There the food was cooked by my classmates’ Italian mammas, many of whom were first-generation immigrants and spoke little or no English, for a large Italian family, as taught by their mothers from traditional family recipes handed down a long maternal line. I ate Italian food, by proxy, like a real Italian and learnt the real nature of this marvellous Mediterranean food.
So it is with some relish that I organise my day, where I can, to be in Hyde Park for lunch. There, among the movies, coffee shops and boutiques, is Jo’burg’s most superb Italian restaurant and delicatessen, Delizie. The word, I’m told, means delight. And that’s what it is, a delight of a place.
Initially only open during the days, but now for dinner too, it serves the finest pasta and pizza in this city of pretenders. It’s like going to lunch, once more, with a large Italian family. Such is the nature of this food: generous, delicious and always appetising. In the five years I’ve been eating there, mother and daughter Sylvana and Patricia Pedretti, Delizie’s chefs par excellence, have consistently served an unrivalled meal.
The main pasta dish of the day which varies from (real) melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi to risotto and homemade pasta with heavenly sauces is complemented by an array of panini (Italian bread rolls) with a superb variety of fillings that define this increasingly popular sandwich.
On top of this they serve a mean coffee, specifically a latte as it’s meant to be, not the frothy milkshake-like drinks masqueraded in most South African restaurants a recent layover at Milan’s Malpensa airport confirmed this.
Did I say Delizie is a deli too? On the shelves are all the bread treats, imported olive oils, balsamic vinegars, small bottled fruit juices, its own succulent pickled vegetables and cheeses that any discerning taste bud could want. Watch out for pantone, the traditional cake made only at Christmas and Easter.
But while most Italian places have such laden shelves, what sets Delizie apart is the mood and the charisma of the Pedrettis, who make it their business to find out who you are and what you like eating.
Thursday evenings have an unusual flavour tie-up with a Thai menu, courtesy of Nok Pedretti, which has a tasty blend of the Italian influence. Chef Luca D’Oria capably holds the fort in the evenings. It’s a slice of Italy, like you’ve never doll.
Delizie is situated in the lower mall, Hyde Park Corner. Tel: (011) 325 6013