Old Village Walk has Italian flavour
● On Wednesday Johannesburg’s jet set and foodie faithful flocked to the opening of a new restaurant that promises to be a citadel to all things culinary with a wickedly Italian twist.
Saint, a venture by the duo who made chisa nyama chic at dining hotspot Marble, chef David Higgs and business partner Gary Kyriacou, touts its food as “pazzo Italiano”, roughly translated as “crazy Italian”.
The mood was more frenetic than pious as I made my way into the Sandton eating spot in the new Marc building that has risen on the site of the old Village Walk shopping centre.
First person I greet is businessman Mutle Mogase, with wife Baba and daughter Lerato. Up comes David to greet the family.
“We’ve been following him since Rust en Vrede, the Gautrain [Radisson Blu Hotel] and the Saxon,” explains Mutle.
Through a crush of bodies swilling champagne and trying to snap up morsels of the canapes that range from sirloin pizzas with pumpkin pesto and arancini balls with saffron aioli to penne with a dusting of parmesan and bacon bits, I spot celebrity divorce lawyer Billy Gundelfinger.
I ask Billy, there with svelte wife Michelle, daughter Lisa and her husband, singer Danny K, what advice he has for couples thinking about divorce.
“A bad settlement is better than a fight in court,” says the man who represented Tokyo Sexwale in his break-up with former wife Judy.
Across the 340-seat eatery is an assortment of guests ranging from Quinton van der Burgh, the billionaire playboy, to Benjamin Trisk, who recently went through a break-up of his own, exiting as CEO of Exclusive Books.
Glamour comes in the form of David Tlale, who designed the front-of-house staff uniforms, and Kerishnie Naiker, who has to fend off the advances of two handsome admirers. “I don’t know who they are,” the vegan health activist sheepishly admits.
When it’s time for speeches, we hear from Gary, who explains what makes this new spot on Africa’s richest mile unique, while David takes time to recognise how the city’s food scene, which is often seen as lagging in Cape Town’s shadows, is picking up.
“Joburg deserves this. It is up to all of us to take it to another level — we owe it to the city,” says David, singling out peers including Desmond Mabuza of Signature restaurant and David Barillot, who will be leaving the Four Seasons Hotel Westcliff, for upping the ante.