LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE Fishy place, in an exotic way
CHEF CREATES A DISNEYSCAPE WITH TWO SMILING NEMOS FROM FRESH SALMON Each week Marie-Lais looks out for the unusual, the unique, the downright quirky or just something or someone we might have had no idea about, even though we live here. We like to travel
Finding La Marina must be part of why it’s a secret, it’s so well hidden from everyone except chefs. Even the people in the office park scratch their heads when Heather and I stop to ask where it is.
Kirsten Jooste scatters truffle zest in my palm. I’m in ingredients wonderland. Here are all the flours, sausage skins, my favourite quail eggs, the duck legs confit I am guilty of loving rather than making.
Past the fridges of scallops, Patagonian toothfish and other fish that has to be frozen, I need these bottled morsels and multi-organic-colourfully striped Marella pastas from Puglia in Italy, stunningly packaged, perfect for presents. I know I’ll love the gaudily waxed Kwaito artisanal cheeses from the Indezi River Creamery in KwaZulu-Natal, Belnori goatsmilk cheeses and Langbaken’s delicious Karoo washed-rinds.
“And the truffles themselves,” Kirsten is saying, “during both seasons.”
She has a naughty smile when I ask about Namibian truffles as she’s from there. “Those are just for me.”
I love how, 22 years ago, as a small... ok, tall, independent seafood agent, she tentatively bought into the business she was serving, made it successful, bought the rest of it and built this new La Marina on her service ethic.
Heather and I don the hairnets and lab coats, mainly because Henry Fourie doesn’t look so hilarious in his, and, on the other side of the divide, travel through almost arctically clean climes, metallic-smelling ozonation. As in Nemo’s world (not the Verne one), everyone has a name. It’s the first tour of a production place where I don’t hear “and this is where the fish gets filleted” and instead “can I introduce you to these ladies who are specialist-filleters?”
I happily hear words like “provenance” and “sustainable” a lot. I hear “she” when it comes to governance and systems and, at one point, Henry says “we’re not allowed to say ‘no’ to anyone”.
On the other side, it’s lunch time in the public restaurant and this is where to have seafood platters. But perhaps Jack Qin notices Heather’s sadness and, instead of his famous sashimi plate art, he produces a Disneyscape with two Nemos smiling up at her from the freshest salmon we are likely to eat in South Africa. Nemo might say “now what?”, but Heather says: “It’s impossible not to be happy looking at this.”
La Marina – 7 Platinum Drive, Spartan, Modderfontein.