FRANCE’S FRESHEST STAR IN SA

Sue de Groot speaks of food and other things French with Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen

Michelin chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen revisits his roots

THE last time we spoke, Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen had just become the first South African to be awarded a Michelin star. On that red-letter day, he was bubbling over like hot polenta on the phone from his restaurant, JAN, in Nice, France. Several weeks later, Van der Westhuizen is calmer, though no less happy. He is in South Africa to launch his new book, JAN: A Breath of French Air, delighted to be on home soil, to have shared a traditional meal, sousboontjies and all, with his family in Mpumalanga, and looking forward to a quiet braai at his other home in Cape Town, which he shares, when in SA, with partner Grant Bacon, two Jack Russells and two Siamese cats.

So what happens when you get a Michelin star? Apart from your restaurant being fully booked for months in advance, suppliers who used to pretend not to understand your French and sent you one pork chop instead of 10 kilograms suddenly discover they can speak perfect English and call to offer you their most coveted produce.

Van der Westhuizen laughs at the vagaries of dealing with the French. “Maybe I’m just getting used to them, or they are getting used to me,” he says. “There is a lady who emerges once a day from her apartment, dressed impeccably, to walk her dog. She would never greet me and her dog would always pee against the wall of the restaurant. Then one day it peed against the wall of the shop next door, and I said, ‘ Merci !’ and handed her a bouquet from the trolley of fresh flowers we always have outside our door. Now the dog never pees against my wall, and she always gives me a little smile.”

There is the other side, of course, that of being under far more scrutiny than you were before a flower-shaped star was placed next to your name, but Van der Westhuizen is sanguine about this. “We were given the star for doing what we do,” he says. “So we are just going to continue doing what we do.”

The timing of his second book, which was already at the printers when the Michelin announcement was made, could not have been better, but Van der Westhuizen is marginally concerned that his new celebrity status might lead people to expect fancier things from the book.

“A few of the dishes in the book are what we make in the restaurant,” he says, “but mostly it is just me playing, making things that anyone can make in their home kitchen, good honest food.”

Van der Westhuizen is particularly proud of his breads (see recipes on the next page) and praises the French for their refusal to embrace the Banting craze. “They don’t even know what it is,” he laughs. “How could one not eat bread in France? I think the difference, though, is when you are eating really excellent bread, and all the ingredients in it are fresh and quality, and you know where the flour comes from, and how it is made … that can only be good.”

He is a skilled photographer as well as a chef, and this combination of talents serves to enhance both prongs of his career. “I check everything at the pass [the division between kitchen and restaurant] and if a plate of food does not look good enough to feature on a page in my book then it is not good enough to be served to a client,” he says.

The converse holds true as well: every photograph in his book of delicacies, many of which infuse airy French brio into South African heart food, looks as though you could eat it right off the page. A star indeed.

‘WE WERE GIVEN THE STAR FOR DOING WHAT WE DO, SO WE ARE JUST GOING TO CONTINUE DOING WHAT WE DO’