Chefs Jorge Vallejo and Luke Dale-Roberts.
“Are those the escamoles?” I ask the waitress, in a whisper. They are crisp, unlike the soft ant larvae I’ve eaten before. “Yes,” she whispers back, “Chef told us not to make a big deal of it, you know, in case someone freaks out.”
But the ant larvae are the point. Those who book for the collaboration dinner at the Pot Luck Club in Cape Town are surely seeking Mexican specialities.
The hosts are Mexico’s Jorge Vallejo (his Quintonil restaurant is 12th on the World’s 50 Best list and sixth on Latin America’s 50 Best, 2015) and Cape Town’s Luke Dale-Roberts of the Test Kitchen (22nd on the World’s 50 Best list, 2016).
Quintonil’s grasshopper is ground up and indistinguishable in a chimichurri sauce served on local aged beef. I notch it up to transportation issues.
How does one whisk these ingredients through customs? Dale-Roberts, who has been in talks for months with the Mexican embassy, which initially willed this collaboration, speculates about a diplomatic pouch. He’s wrong; the ingredients arrive in the chef’s suitcase. Vallejo, just 34 but with a host of global dinners under his belt, says he has to get crafty the day after the first dinner (there are three).
“At the restaurant we use fresh ingredients, as most are in season, but I have a friend who can freeze-dry food,” he says.
And thus the escamoles arrived in Cape Town freeze-dried. And the chillies? In pastes and sauces.
“I thought maybe the people would be scared [of the escamoles]. I know they are not amateurs but I said: ‘Eat first, then I tell you’,” Vallejo says.
In spite of very little sleep since his arrival two days before and the boisterous Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which started a little after midnight on the first night of service, he’s in good spirits. So is Dale-Roberts. The Test Kitchen is being renovated and his light and sound installation will be revealed when the restaurant reopens on October 10.
Encouraged by the response from the first night Dale-Roberts, who met Vallejo at the World’s 50 Best restaurant awards, says the dinner series was effortless to co-ordinate.
Over three months and in a number of emails, he sent Vallejo lists of seasonal South African ingredients and they developed a menu — at first 10 courses, which shaped into 14.
A mix of autumnal flavours feature from Dale-Roberts, who smokes sea bass and sweetbreads on separate dishes, and uses celeriac, pine nut béchamel and pear, feather-light springbok carpaccio on crunchy beetroot crisps, and Peking-style quail breast with light Tunisian brik pastry.
These blend seamlessly with Vallejo’s take on spring: zucchini flowers cocooning shrimp tartare, mushrooms with bright broad bean purée and crab tostadas (he brought the taco crisps from Mexico) with spicy mayonnaise. It’s Dale-Roberts’ favourite dish on Vallejo’s menu.
He always travels with Mexican chillies. He says he’d bring them before his set of knives. “I try to educate people about chillies. Not all are hot; some have a citrus note, some are sweet.”
With a rich and varied food culture, it’s tough to compete with the street vendors and Mexican abuelas’ (grandmothers) home cooking.
“But I am cooking in my home, I am living on the second story of my restaurant,” Vallejo responds.
“I think a big challenge for a chef is you have to be better than your grandmother and even your customer’s grandmothers.
“When my grandmother showed me how to cook, she was saying you have to put your soul and all your love into the food because you want a person to be nourished.”
Vallejo describes his food as being without pretention and says he will sacrifice presentation for flavour or what he calls “deliciousness”.
“The eyes make you lazy. Food is also texture, the chewing sound, the first taste, the temperature. I like to be simple in plating but big in flavour,” he says.
His other tenets involve healthy food and the ethics of food and people management.
Dale-Roberts says he’s moved away from meat-based stocks to simple, lighter and less fatty vegetable-based stocks and sauces.
“He is a very nice guy,” Vallejo says of Dale-Roberts, explaining the easy rapport between them.
“And we both take care of the staff in our kitchen. It is more than just making food; it is about collaborating,” Vallejo adds.
Quintonil staff held street food demonstrations in Cape Town’s Lavender Hill, to teach older women how to make simple maize-based foods for profit.
The Test Kitchen will host workshops with a respected chef, Abigail Mendoza, who specialises in traditional Oaxacan food, and will cohost dinners in Mexico with restaurants in December. Viva la deliciousness — or, in Spanish, Viva comida deliciosa!