From plane to garden to table

Just a short hop from Lanseria Airport you can now stop for kitchenware, coffee and something to eat while a take-home box of organic vegetables is being picked for you.

For chefs and foodies in the north, the Culinary Equipment Company showroom near Lanseria Airport has long been a wonderland. A vast variety of imported pots, pans, stoves, bowls, and baking, dining and cooking utensils sit on the shelves, each one as desirable as the next.

In 2014, father-anddaughter team Wehrner and Daniela Gutstadt took the next logical step: opening a “show kitchen”, a gardento-table restaurant, deli shop, butchery, cheese counter and bakery. Later that year they added an organic vegetable-and-herb garden where pesticides and other harmful chemicals are taboo, and where companion and sacrificial (or trap) plants are used to fool unwelcome guests or make them flee the garden.

Daniela, who trained at the International Culinary Center in New York, tells us you can order a “Garden Box” for R150 with your food or drinks. It includes a variety of in-season salad leaves, veg and herbs – enough to prepare two meals for two people. And if, like Platteland, you happen to sit on the large stoep overlooking the garden, you can watch the gardeners picking your box. It doesn’t get fresher than this. • The restaurant kitchen is open for breakfast and lunch from 08:00 to 15:00 on weekdays and from 09:00 to 14:00 on weekends.

culinarytable.co.za table@ culinary.co.za 011 701 2200

With this versatile Minipresso NS hand press, weighing only 350g, you only need boiling water (and, of course, coffee) to make fresh espresso anytime. It costs R999. We love this stainlesssteel coffee spoon (R80) with a clamp handle for closing your bag of coffee.

This food garden determines what chef Daniela Gutstadt (left) puts on the menu. Visitors can share in the harvest by ordering a box of veggies, like the one Paballo Poole (above) has put together.