New Year’s Eve: the afternoon of. Prawns resting in my kitchen in a juicy mush of olive oil and crushed garlic, smoked Oryx Desert Salt pulling flavour. Ostrich fillet marinating too. While I sit, laptop on lap, in the lounge, tweaking my first story of 2021 for
TGIFood. A happy story. About the journey with many hurdles of Chef Themba Mngoma, whom I first wrote about in 2012 and who finally has a restaurant home. His New Year menu posted on Instagram has made my mouth water. Especially the champagne-poached crayfish and clam starter served with saffron risotto and the whole-baked red snapper main with sumac, tabouleh and kachumbari salad.
Some have survived. A few are thriving. Many have gone for good. Others are limping along. There are the optimists, the risk-takers, the resourceful, the resilient, the innovative and chefs with Covid-19. New ideas. New directions. New restaurants springing up. All this when the closest anyone can get to a new normal is the hunger for it. The only certainty: uncertainty.
So, who would have imagined this scenario?
On Thursday 20 February 2020 I meet US friends from near Chicago at 9th Avenue Waterside. It is their first visit to Durban. I make the reservation when they say: “We want to take you for dinner somewhere really special. You choose.”