Best-selling prawns and spinach salad
The gal always likes to know what chefs and servers of luxury hotels have for THEIR dinners, so at The Maslow, in Johannesburg, what was chef Jason Millar’s answer? He shook his head, said he had not had time to think but it would be something when service was over, probably a spinach and prawn salad, which did not sound very satisfying. Jason Millar has only been here for a couple of months (he was enticed from One&Only in Cape Town) but he has already added 50 rand ($4 or £2.80) to the average check. His spinach and prawn starter, with truffle and parmesan dressing, is undoubtedly one of the reasons why.
Looking through Lacuna restaurant
Lacuna, the hotel’s all-day restaurant, is deliberately set as free-standing rather than a ‘hotel restaurant’. Outsiders come here because there is lots of free parking, with omnipresent security, and the restaurant flows out on to terraces and the garden overlooking the pool. Prices are deliberately kept in line with other popular restaurants, says the hotel’s creative GM Johan Scheepers, who was pulled back to South Africa after opening the Abode Hotel in Manchester UK – he worked there with Abode’s owners, a greetings card millionaire Michael Brownsword and his business partner, chef Michael Caines, who in his spare time rustles up little dishes for the Williams Formula 1 team.
Woodview Wagyu, and Laguiole knife
On my first visit to South Africa I remember going to safari lodges and seeing fellow visitors work their way through all the protein on the menu. They may not eat so many different meats now but these locals sure do still like their steaks. I am encouraged to have a 200-gram Woodview Wagyu sirloin, platinum level (is it meat or an American Express credit card?). We are sitting at a high communal table right by the open kitchen and I can see it being cooked. It comes with a Laguiole knife, and creamed spinach, and crispy chips (chunky fries) in a basket that are so delectable I have another order. We are drinking the hotel’s own Maslow Cape Blend 2013, a blend of Shiraz, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Barbera. The brief here is simple food really well cooked – hotel restaurants are usually too fussy, says the GM, and I agree wholeheartedly. And THEN, believe it or not, Johan Scheepers insists on ordering a passion fruit dessert. Mr S smiles knowingly, and tucks into a passion fruit cream in a tart shell. He has honestly created this luxury hotel, and its food product, almost single-handedly…
