Faf feeds his inner foodie with bistro
MANY people turn to food for comfort, but sportsmen usually do it for the money.
Proteas cricketer Faf du Plessis is the latest South African sports celeb to try his hand at the restaurant business. Between playing for the Indian Premier League and moving to Cape Town, the 30year-old batsman has invested in a high-end spot, Bistro 13, in Stellenbosch.
But he says the move was prompted by more than his return on investment. He holds only a 20% stake in the bistro.
“I love trying new foods and experimenting with food, which is why I also want to learn more tricks; I hope one day I can be in the kitchen here in the restaurant and actually help with the cooking side of things,” he said.
His first culinary experience was a “sachet of ready-made pasta”, but his years of travelling helped him fall in love with different types of food — which in turn helped him attract the woman of his dreams, his wife, Imari Visser.
“I used to spoil Imari with my cooking when we dated. I did most of the cooking . . . I would try lots of different things. But now she does all the cooking because she’s into that Tim Noakes clean eating thing,” giggled Du Plessis, whose favourite meal is beef tartare.
Du Plessis — who recently moved from Pretoria to Cape Town — has just returned from the IPL series in India, where he played for the Chennai Super Kings, who made it to the final only to lose to the Mumbai Indians.
The Stellenbosch restaurant is run by chef Nic van Wyk. Du Plessis was quick to point out: “People won’t see me cooking in the kitchen every night. This is just a nice hobby for me. I use this place as a getaway when I have some off time.
“It also reminds me that I have a place I can come to, have some food, learn some cooking skills from the chef in the kitchen and try to have some fun at the same time,” he said.
Other national sportsmen who have invested in food include Du Plessis’s former teammate Graeme Smith, who has a share of a pub called Vasco da Gama Taverna in Green Point, Cape Town, and golfing champion Ernie Els, who put some money into The Big Easy in Stellenbosch.
But perhaps the most successful local sportsman turned restaurateur is former Springbok Kobus Wiese.
His first investment in a “worn-down coffee shop” on Gauteng’s East Rand in 1994 has grown into a franchise structure called Wiesenhof Coffees, with 75 outlets in South Africa and Namibia.
“It was a really old place that me and my then girlfriend — who’s now my wife — really liked.
“We bought it, fixed it up and it did its part back then.
“A few years later I got serious about the business and it has grown really well and we are looking into branching to other countries,” said Wiese.
I hope one day I can be in the kitchen here and actually help with the cooking side