The LivingRoom
Where: Summerhill Guest Estate, 9 Belvedale Road, Cowies Hill
Open: Tuesday to Saturday dinner, Sunday lunch.
Call: 063 529 1966
The LivingRoom is the domain of chef Johannes Richter, born in Germany but raised here in Durban.
Richter met his wife Johanna while they were both working in a restaurant in Berlin, and decided to come back to Durban and open their restaurant and join the family business on the Summerhill estate.
Richter aims to showcase the province’s culinary diversity from garden to plate, expressed through his French training and passion for Asian techniques. It’s an approach that has won awards, including being the only local restaurant on the country’s top 20 voted by Eat Out Magazine.
For a birthday special, four of us took up a restaurant week special of R610 (normal price R690) on their five-course tasting menu with the wine pairing a further R425.
The restaurant is a comfortable space, with deep teal walls and eclectic design elements. There’s a grand piano at its epicentre. In winter a roaring fire may keep things cosy, in summer everything was opened up to the cooling sea breezes. A skilled guitarist and singer was the entertainment, but not intrusive, just in the background.
We were happy to let the chef surprise us with what we were eating, and surprised we certainly were.
The bread course at the LivingRoom is always a delight, and today took in flavours of watermelon and cucumber. Besides featuring their home-made sourdough and lovely crisp crackers, there were little watermelon and cucumber rounds that looked like delectable sushi morsels, and a bowl of watermelon gazpacho, and little balls or watermelon in quite a spicy tomato or red pepper sauce.
The first course was an exquisitely presented carrot soup, paired with a sauvignon blanc chardonnay blend. These pretty little rounds of pickled carrots are then topped with the hot soup at the table. Richter gets a lovely range and depth of flavours from such a humble vegetable. Impressive.
Next up was chicken and green bananas with an exceptional veloute sauce, again poured over the dish at the table. It came with a mussel and a green banana fritter sitting in the mussel shell, which was a lovely touch. It’s unusual for a chicken dish to be the highlight of the day, but this was outstanding. The chicken was succulently moist, the skin crisp, and that sauce every bit as velvety as its French name suggests it should be. The depth of flavour was impressive ‒ this was some really good chicken stock. It was served with a fruity but dry riesling.
Warthog featured next, done as both bacon and carpaccio. The crisp salty bacon with mushrooms and the carpaccio with ocra and a hot miso style broth. An enjoyable dish.
Grilled eland loin was next, served on butter beans and garnished with cherries. This lovely main piece of meat, not often seen on Durban menus, was served with a light sangiovese which was spot-on.
Richter next sent out a palate cleanser of strawberry granita, topped with the tiniest little meringues and little lemon or lime jellies. I would have gladly taken a bucket of this intense strawberry ice home for breakfast.
Dessert itself was an ode to millet, the South African grain chef felt was under-utilised in the kitchen. It was certainly tasty, and interesting, but perhaps not my thing. This was a millet base to a pannacotta served with ice cream, a shard of sugar topped with dessert-type things served on a bed of millet, and a porridge of millet topped with popped corn and a ball of lemon or lime ice. It was served with a glass of bubbles.
Maybe it’s just that all these years later boarding school has still scarred me when it comes to porridge. But you’ve got to call it imaginative. Another bowl of the palate cleanser would have sufficed.
We finished with coffee and petit fours ‒ little prickly pair jellies and white chocolate fondants with a prickly pear top that looked a lot like the nipples of Venus.
It was late in the afternoon before we made the trip back to Durban.
Food: 4½
Service: 4
Ambience: 4½
The Bill: R5 512 for four including cognacs and liqueurs.
The Independent on Saturday