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La Petite Maison
1 Seventh Street, Melville, Johannesburg
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Blink as you drive along the hustle and bustle of Seventh Street in Melville and you might miss La Petite Maison. It’s a tiny sliver of a restaurant with cobbled floors, upholstered velvet banquettes and low-key jazz to set the scene. Seating no more than 20 diners at a time, the venue is intimate and elegant.
But for the absence of gilets jaunes, cigarette smoke and dog poo on the pavement outside the restaurant, a diner might imagine that they had passed through a portal into Paris.
Chefs Tyeya Ngxola and Timothy Stewart opened La Petite Maison in February and it is rapidly becoming the hot spot for cool people in Joburg. Both Ngxola and Stewart are graduates of Pretoria’s Prue Leith Chefs Academy and Alma La Scuola Internazionale di Cucina Italiana in Colorno, Parma, Italy. Between them they have racked up some seriously impressive kitchen time with stints at Cape Town’s The Test Kitchen (listed on media company Forbes’ World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, 2018) and Michelin-starred Italian eateries La Fiorida and Antica Corte Pallavicina.
La Petite Maison’s seasonal menu reflects local and international influences. While the cooking methods are generally classic French and Italian, it is the South African land- and seascapes that supply the chefs with gourmet inspiration. Lunchtime diners are offered charcuterie and cheese platters while those eating in the evening are taken on three- or seven-course culinary journeys across their epicurean environment.
Vegan and meat-based menus are available, and each course represents a region. Prices are at the reasonable end of average for such gourmet food. The three-course tasting menus will set you back R400 per person without wine and R550 with wines. Those who splash out on the seven-course tasting menu will pay R750 without wine and R1 100 with wines.
My meal started with an Atlantic Ocean-inspired jet-black swirl of squid-ink risotto topped with golden calamari coils. Elegantly rich, creamy and complex, there was just the right amount of bite to each rice grain. The Karoo came next with silky dice of raw ostrich tartare. Crisp fried capers offered an exciting contrast of texture. Then there was a rectangle of Magalies pork belly. Is there any sound finer than the crunch of crackling between molars? That crunch gave way to tender fat and slow-cooked, soft strands of meat. Slices of fresh fig and a glistening, chestnut brown, demi-glace sauce completed a superb sweet-savoury union.
Plums mark the moment when summer turns to autumn, so it was slightly sad to see them served with the Hogsback duck dish. But not so sad that it wasn’t wonderful to taste their tart tang against the caramelised skin and rosy pink interior of bias-cut duck breast. A lovely-looking spiced lamb rack with harissa, prunes and caramelised onions was offered, but I was so full by then that I had to decline. Palates were cleansed with a Tzaneen-inspired mango and rum granita. Perhaps the chefs knew that we needed reassurance that summer wasn’t yet gone when they sent a dessert of raspberries and pistachio nuts cradled in a chocolate sphere.
Ngxola and Stewart have assembled one of the most thoughtful boutique wine lists in Johannesburg. Food and wine pairing is a specialty of the house. Everything was excellent, but I particularly enjoyed the ostrich with winemaker Mphumi Ndlangisa’s light and fresh Mizwa vin de soif white Merlot.
We live in an age of restaurant chains and junk food dressed up as posh nosh. Often an Instagram image is mistaken for quality food.
Thankfully, this is the real deal – delicious, beautiful and skilled cooking from chefs with the substance to back up their style.
. For more information, contact La Petite Maison at 010 593 7986 or go to their Facebook page
