A food year that began with languid days reading Lawrence G Green and writing about the Springbok migrations ended with another visit to Johannesburg, a city whose culture I understand better than I ever have, thanks to two visits this year. By way of context, I was, once upon a time, fairly comfortable in the Cape Town mindset that places Jozi as a “far north” city bereft of the kind of restaurants the Mother City’s denizens take for granted. This is very far from the truth, especially today.

On my earlier visit I managed to get into a handful of restaurants, in a minor quest to try to get a handle on the city’s eateries and food culture. I went to Modern Taylors, Sotto Sopra, the Test Kitchen Carbon, and the Grillhouse, a meaty Jozi institution. I tried to get into Marble and Embarc, two of the most talked-about restaurants in the city, but they were fully booked. This time I got to them both.

This is a thing about Joburg’s best restaurants. They’re busy, all the time. Because Jozi people eat out as a matter of course, like Londoners and New Yorkers. And this has long been the case. On many visits to Jozi back when no one ever called it that, in the Eighties, I ate out at superb restaurants, Italian, Indian, the Three Ships at the Carlton, Linger Longer, Ma Cuisine, Gatriles, and Perfumed Garden, the most fabulous Indian joint I have ever been in. And they were all busy, every time, and this effervescence does not seem to have dimmed. Capetonians often have to be coaxed out of their comfort zones, especially in winter; Joburg people are not seasonal in their approach. To them, life is life, you get out there and do it, and never mind the weather. Londoners are like that too. Many Londoners don’t even bother to carry a brolly because rain, like taxes, is inevitable.

There were many years between those heady days of visiting Joburg frequently and now in which I did not visit, even once, in what must be well over two decades. The last I recall was in the late Nineties, but that was a massive function in Midrand to launch Primedia’s then launch into film production, which was soon to fizzle out. It was huge, noisy, everyone in show business was there. I bumped into Moonyeenn Lee, Des and Dawn Lindberg, Gordon Mulholland (the first famous person I ever interviewed, in the mid-Seventies as a rookie), and old journo friends including Guy Oliver, Chris du Plessis and Darryl Accone.

It was Darryl who took me to Modern Taylors in September, and this time, in early December, he went more low-key with his favourite Greek taverna, Parea, which you reach via a mad street chase that makes no sense whatsoever and which only a veteran Jozi driver could make any sense of. This during kid-collecting hour on a blind-hot day with no aircon in the 1992 Camry and traffic diversions thanks to roadworks, and every other car is a Porsche or Audi, even the odd Bentley.

It was more about the conversation than the food, as I had a 6pm dinner appointment at Embarc and we only finally got to Parea after two. We nibbled on lovely meze and gossiped uproariously about old journo times and old hacks, which is what we old hacks do when we get together. Darryl is typical of the Joburger who jumps into the car in a trice, just like Moonyeenn used to do on my visits in the Eighties when she wined and dined me everywhere. Driving for an hour to get to dinner and see a friend is as normal as popping into a café for a coffee. It’s not something you think twice about. You just do it.

The night before, I’d been to Marble, David Higgs’ ode to fire and meat on the top floor of a glassy Rosebank edifice. It’s electric, it’s exciting, it has style, sass and a core of steel. It’s set to have a branch at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town with a November 2023 launch in mind and I wonder if Capetonians will go with it, get it, and stick with it. That is always the fear with the Cape Town diner. They come, they rave, but often at some point they move on to the Next Big Thing.

Marble, top and bottom: The action on the pass. Centre from left: bread and butter service; a fish course ready to go on the pass; octopus; Silent Valley Wagyu sirloin. (Photos and composite image: Tony Jackman)

It’s a great concept and typically Joburg. It’s big, it’s bold, it reeks of money and power and sizzles with the life force that permeates this city built on a reef of quartzite, avarice and determination. All cities spawned by gold or diamonds are exciting. People born and bred there have none of the frippery of the seaboard resident who is ever distracted by the glories to be seen in every direction. Jozi types lack the distractions of endless seascapes, enchanting vineyards and imposing mountains, and are happy to glory in those on their occasional visits to the Cape. They have much more money than their Cape Town cousins, and they don’t mind spending it. And they spend most of it right where they live.

Spending it at Marble that night were captains of business out with their entourages; confident men in white shirts with strong arms and sharp haircuts who didn’t need to fret about how much the bill would be, and there’d be none of that embarrassing tally-up at the end of the meal and the “I had the steak, he had the salmon, who had the still water?” melodrama. Someone puts a card down and pays for the lot, done.

The Cape was represented at my table. The octopus, Higgs told me when he stopped to say hello, was from the Cape. It was char-grilled and dressed with tiger’s milk, apple, jalapeño, with charred corn salsa and dill mayonnaise. You’ll be picking up the theme by now. Everything at Marble is forged in fire. Charred, char-grilled, flame-grilled, open fire-grilled, coal-fired, these terms punctuate the menu. Along one wall is a long kitchen and a pass of equal length so that diners can appreciate the fiery spectacle and hear the sizzle and sear. And Higgs is on the pass himself, in person, and this is so impressive as way too many celeb restaurateurs find it beneath themselves to deign to actually manage the pass night after night. Huge respect and kudos for that.

I chose a 300 g Silent Valley Wagyu sirloin, described on the Marble Signatures section of the menu as “the very best of our Signature Range, export-grade Wagyu”. The price for this was R695 (the 400 g rib-eye is R890). Not a price I’d normally be prepared to pay for a steak but visiting Marble had been a long time coming; it was a table for one, which did help. I had eschewed several much pricier cuts in the Marble Signatures range. From RR Ranch Northwest Meat in Washington State, USA, comes a 400 g rib-eye that’s wet-aged for 45 days, priced at R1,450. From Migo’s Jersey Beef in Tsitsikamma there’s a 42-day dry-aged sirloin on the bone for R1,250 and 750 g prime rib for R1,350.

These prices are not typical of the menu however; these are the showstopper impress-the-client-you’re-wooing numbers. Most items on the main menu, called The Works, are in the two and three hundreds, pretty standard for top-end Jozi eateries. Yes, eating out in the Golden City is a costly affair.

The Wagyu sirloin was perfectly rare as ordered, supremely tender (Wagyu comes with a tenderness guarantee), and was served with elegantly blanched tenderstem broccoli and green beans, and chips two ways: the house chips which were everything you ever wanted in a chip, and homemade potato crisps that were incredibly crunchy but surprisingly salty.

I eschewed dessert, well aware of the cost of that steak, but when I called for the bill and opened the folder, there was only a handwritten note from Higgs: “Thank you.”

The dinner at Embarc the next night brought a bit of Christmas into the mood of things when a brass quartet set up in the street and played carols; later, when the sun dipped, fairy lights came on all over the place. Embarc is cool, crisp and decked in white, black and tan, and is set on a corner of a restaurant strip in Parkhurst where many Capetonian diners-out would feel at home. It’s a lively scene with guys strolling up and down selling stacks of hats, and women with baskets piled high on their heads traipsing this way and that. Music pours out of every bar and café. This is the ordinary Jozi denizen eating out on any given weeknight. And every joint is packed. Right across the road is The Blockman with its meaty wonders. Just up the drag is Kolonaki, an airy, modern Greek place. There’s Modena, an Italian place locals are raving about, and plenty more.

Embarc, left panel: tuna tataki, ostrich, risotto. Clockwise from top right: the tan, white and charcoal interior; kataifi prawns; Christmas buskers in the street. (Photos and composite image: Tony Jackman)

Embarc is the smart end of Parkhurst dining, but let’s not call this fine dining, I wrote in my notes. Chef-patron Darren O’Donovan’s casual personal style stretches to shorts, a T-shirt and an apron. And if the owner dresses like that, you know you don’t need to feel any code is required other than to sit down, enjoy your meal and pay for it before you go.

I got treated to a tour of much of the menu here, my colleague Marie-Lais Emond having talked me up somewhat with the chef. After the unassuming Darren had talked me through various items and tried to get a bead on what I liked, he interrupted himself and said, “How about I just bring you smaller tastes of things and see how we go?” His staff then followed up by asking if I had any allergies or if there was anything I didn’t eat (no) and off the chef went to surprise me.

Nothing here was less than five-star, whether kataifi prawns with tom yum, coconut and soya, creamy burrata with walnuts, grapes and wild rocket, or incredible tuna tataki. But the mushroom risotto was out of this world. Risotto is a test of any chef or home cook. This favoured eryngii mushrooms, also known as king trumpets, and had the crunch of toasted hazelnuts, a clear hit of truffle, Parmesan and a deep-fried sage garnish. I can’t say I could discern the last ingredient but it was there.

There was tortellini with smoked mozzarella and cream cheese, with paprika, flaked almonds, Champagne cream and added chorizo. It sounds like an odd mélange but O’Donovan has a way of making seemingly disparate elements play together like a symphony. He is a very special chef and I fully see why my Joburg colleagues rate him so highly.

After these small but elegant plates came an ostrich fillet with a deep reduction sauce redolent of plum and licorice. So tender, and I wrote: “reminds you that ostrich is underrated”.

The waiter looked surprised when I replied “yes” to his question as to whether I could manage a dessert, but I’d gone this far so what the hell. This was a nougat cheesecake with a fabulous shortbread base, mango and cheesecake ice cream. I refrained from demanding an entire bowl of the shortbread base.

Remarkably, everything had a freshness and lightness about it, a result of the finesse and restraint which mark this man, a chef to watch. DM/TGIFood

Chef O’Donovan declined to charge for his choices of the dishes he wanted me to try.