TASTES LIKE MORE
One of the Mother City’s most iconic deli-restaurants, beloved by both locals and a certain US First Lady, has been forced to close its doors for good. Owner Karen Dudley recalls the joy, spirit of connection and the unforgettable food that made The Kitc
The closure of The Kitchen in Woodstock has left many brokenhearted, owner Karen Dudley most of all. She shares her memories and her legacy.
When you’ve been pouring your heart and soul into the day-to-day urgencies of running a business (“The cold room’s down!”; “We need more coriander, Mama!”) you don’t realise how it has evolved into something other than what you’d expected. In 2009, we moved my catering company from my home to a burnt-out fish-and-chip shop on the Main Road in Woodstock. Ten years later, I realised we’d become a restaurant that also did catering.
The Kitchen buzzed. Every day was a performance, peaking with the lunchtime crush. People would line up for the salads and honey-mustard sausages, for grilled chicken, falafel and more. In summer, we needed four to five servers to manage the making of Love Sandwiches and to dish salad plates and boxes.
This bustle was our fuel. Find more chairs! Squeeze these people up on the bench! There was a first round of salad, then a second round, then hastily created thirds. And in the bustle, crates were rolled out to production companies, corporates and private cocktail parties.
My team was simply phenomenal. Consider the accomplishment of creating consistently fine, fresh, varied food every day and doing it all as a collaboration – doing it daily as devotion.
I had my epiphany on the first day in my new shop: I loved to serve. I understood that I could connect profoundly with people through the food that I made. As I built a Love Sandwich for a hungry/tired/happy person before me, I could make a difference to their day. Trusting in the goodness of what I knew was delicious, I got to spend my love.
This was more than hospitality, this was connection. This was community: the sweet exchange with friends coming back every day, or once a month … landing at the airport and taking an Uber to The Kitchen before going home. My chef friends were envious. I got to do what all chefs long for: to express themselves through the food they make and connect with the people they feed.
Every day was dynamic. New flavours. Dramas. Discoveries. And there was also the challenge of building a business from one that started out of love to one that now had to make money.
Our kitchen was essentially a glorified home kitchen just with more ovens and a cold room. At the peak of the season we could do five or more parties in a day and we could pull something together in 30 minutes for a last-minute order, our tireless cooks completely in sync with each other.
There was thrill and adrenaline, but also the joy of creation. Every few weeks I’d introduce a small selection of new recipes and the team would fall upon them with gusto. I’d outline my idea and the next thing there would be a new salad in the fridge with a little saucer for me to sample. “You like it, Mama?” Everyone would have a taste. Will it play nicely with the others? There was a reverence for produce and a longing to please.
When people gather at tables, especially around something delicious, they create culture. The Kitchen was where you could meet a friend, a lover, a bunch of people. You could make a new friend, have a tiff, plan an enterprise. You could get a really good coffee and unforgettable avo toast.
So you see my grief: the big hole in the landscape of our shared life. But there is sweet sadness, too. Because we had this time. And we cherish this memory. I know now how precious it was to be able to live what I was destined to do and spend my love every day. I know, too, that all our friends understand what this exchange and this space has meant. And mercifully, we can still connect in the online space. Here, we can remove our masks.
For now, I must navigate the uncomfortable and humbling business of termination, which is agonising.
The scale of loss is huge and threatens to follow us into the future. But I will finish the thing that I started.
When people gather around something delicious, they create culture”
Jacana Media is selling my third book, Set a Table, at R200 a copy. Proceeds go to my staff. Stay in touch with me on Instagram, @capetownk.