Durban - KZN’s foodies have something to celebrate. The LivingRoom, at the Summerhill Guest Estate in Cowies Hill, recently won Restaurant of the Year in the Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant Awards. It was also one of only five restaurants in the country awarded a three-star rating.
The Independent on Saturday caught up with the husband and wife team that made it all happen ‒ chef Johannes and Johanna Richter in their home and restaurant.
“We’re really chuffed,” said Johanna.
“It was always something we were working towards, being up there with the big guns, but we were caught off guard,” said Johannes. “It’s six years of really hard work, perfecting ideas and concepts, and a credit to a team that buys into it. Plus it’s a new vantage point. Everyone looks towards Japan or Europe, but why not Durban?”
“We came 13th in 2019 and our goal was to progress,” said Johanna. “In March when the judging panel was announced, we had pictures of them, but two of them slipped by without us knowing who they were. The head judge visited for a full service the night before Johannes was running the Comrades,” she said. “The kitchen coped admirably.”
Johannes thinks Durban underestimates itself. “Durban has always been detached from the perceived food hubs in the country, a bit left out, but this has changed all that. We were told a tasting menu would never work. But it has and we have a loyal local following.”
“It’s what’s kept us going through Covid,” said Johanna. “The most beautiful thing is that guests have seen our progression. They see little changes each time. Each time a little bit more. Oscar (their son) is now five, and some guests remember coming here since I was pregnant with him.”
The LivingRoom is on the Summerhill Estate which was Johannes’s childhood home, becoming a B&B in 1997. “My family immigrated from Germany and I had a lovely childhood here. The place is close to my heart.” And when the young couple wanted to start a family, they moved here and opened the restaurant.
He tells how they met in Berlin, both working at the three-Michelin-star Rutz. “I know it’s a cliché, but he was the chef and I was the waitress,” said Johanna.
He had first studied law and business science. “I didn’t finish either. As a kid, I’d always been drawn to the kitchen after school. I think it calmed me down.”
He tells of long school holidays on his grandparents’ farm in Hungary where you could just pick ripe peaches off the trees. And of a holiday to Zanzibar when he saw vanilla growing. “Someone cut a piece of bark off a tree and it was cinnamon.”
He embarked on an apprenticeship in Germany, a three-year course working in kitchens, with theory done by correspondence. “They start you off in the scullery and you work your way up. Fortunately, in my case, they realised I didn’t need to be in the scullery very long,” he says. He came in the top five of his class.
Johanna grew up in Austria and went to hotel school before a stint in Hamburg and three years in Spain. “I was in Spain and looking to come back to Germany when a guest told me I’d be perfect for Rutz Restaurant. So, I wrote to them and they accepted me. I wasn’t even meant to be working that day, so I should never have met that guest. So, I was meant to meet Johannes,” she said.
The two returned to South Africa and opened The LivingRoom in 2017. “We’re now two kids and a dog (and one might add an award-winning restaurant) later,” said Johannes.
He believes Durban has a lot to showcase and aims to do it through his cooking. “We try to grasp that diversity. There are African influences, jazz influences. Eating tripe at the Rainbow Restaurant left a huge stamp on me. I’ve been privileged to work with a lot of older Indian aunties, so I can make a traditional masala or mango pickle. I try to combine all these things,” he said.
Johanna tells of a small wedding held during Covid where neither of the parents had experienced fine dining. “Johannes made this beautiful cauliflower pickle. One of the dads was blown away. It had the same flavour profile as his aunt’s. It was his favourite and she used to make it for him specially.”
“I’d like to think everyone here would find something they know, something that will give them goosebumps or flashbacks to their youth,” Johannes said. “Food is apolitical. It comes from the heart.”
They know all their producers and try to keep everything as local as possible. The furthest afield is the chocolate that comes from Tanzania. The aim is to produce 30% from the estate itself, a goal not reached yet, said Johannes. But the vegetable garden out back is a riot of peppers, sweet potatoes and beans from Mozambique and Susus. There is even a chicken hut.
While we’re talking, a potter delivers plates, made from clay in the Midlands, for the restaurant. Johanna produces a jar sitting on the grand piano which will soon be chef’s miso paste, made from African millet and dhal rather than the traditional Japanese wheat and soya. We take a whiff of its developing aromas.
“We try to do the right thing, reduce our emissions, and have the right moral compass,” Joannes said. “I try to use a lot of venison because it’s free of steroids and antibiotics, and to focus more on African produce.”
Johanna goes out of her way to make the restaurant feel accessible, “like you’re at a friend’s place. It may be special, yes, but we’re not pretentious”.
“How can you enjoy a meal when everything is overwhelming and stiff?” chef asks. “It will destroy your sensory perception of the food.”
Regarding their newfound fame, the couple are level-headed. “I think people will come for the food experience,” Johanna said. “If you come because you’re famous and want to be seen, I won’t recognise you. I won’t know if you have a Lamborghini in the car park.”
The Independent on Saturday