Mosaic — reminiscence of a perfect lunch
By: Epicurean Sybarite
Tags: Food, Wine

Mosaic — reminiscence of a perfect lunch

More notes than a story.

Arrival

It was good to be received by sommelier Germain Léhody and hostess Mari Dartnall, who immediately create an air of confidence around the experience that awaits us. Very different from the the demure reception by docile staff you often encounter in other places.

There is strict entrance control at the gate by forthright attendants, and upon arrival you are escorted from your car through the entrance and up the stairs into the restaurants, in the welcoming warm embrace of aforementioned hostess and sommelier.

These little things set the tone for a fine afternoon (hopefully).

Overview

Mosaic Restaurant is part of the of The Orient boutique hotel, which is an architectural monstrosity in the sticks outside Pretoria, and which in my humble opinion serves no other purpose than harbouring Chantel Dartnall’s culinary brilliance. If she would no longer be there, the palace ought be flattened for reasons of it being an alien/invasive species of architecture.

Inside the restaurant, they have been able to create a more restraint balance between the gauche and the kitsch. Oversized Gustav Klimt reproductions and faux Belle Époque tile murals sum it all up. It feels like the luxury version of the Hansel and Gretel house. I kind of like that, especially retroactively, since it forms such an extreme juxtaposition with the epicurean delights. I want to believe that all the tackiness is there for a reason: to make sure that the overall experience is not too easily brilliant, and to force diners to cut through all the ornamental indiscretions and arrive at the only truth of this place — outstanding food and wine — so that only true gourmands will endure the decorative transgressions and keep coming back all the time. But that would be giving them too much credit. I think they really like to recreate the phantasy world of the Arabian Nights and the Brothers Grimm.

Enough of the negativity now. Based on this particular experience I feel that Chantel Dartnall is the best chef in in Gauteng, possibly in the country. I have not yet been to The Test Kitchen, but from a purely culinary point of view I rate this restaurant higher than for example Five Hundred (actually, by a mile) and The Tasting Room (but not THAT much).

The music is at the right level and supports the meal. Funny that they still seem to use CD players, since the music skips often.

My partner took me into the ladies bathroom, which is very ornate, and sports a mannequin dressed in a 1920’s jazz outfit. Where else do you find a bidet in a restaurant these days, and what are you supposed to do with it?

Table

The table is expertly set, with beautiful, delicately looking cutlery and decent glasses. The side table of equal hight is a nice detail, and turns out to be very useful in light of the wine service.

But beware, the booths are to be avoided if you are somewhat bigger (because of one’s culinary exploits) and/or have a bad back.

They use beautiful cutlery. It looks small, but in light of the size of the portions it actually works out well. As with every other tasting menu, tableware is very different across the dishes, but suits each individual dish well.

Upon arriving, standard restaurant range Schott Zwiesel glasses are on the table, which is better than in most top restaurants, but the rims are still too thick for my liking. After a bit of prodding they bring out proper Riedels (NOT the restaurant range) and at the end of the evening, if the wine warrants it, you can lay your hands on the Sommelier range. Moral of this story: you won’t find yourself drinking the once-in-your-lifetime-wine-find out of substandard glasses.

It seems we were there on the first day of the new tasting menu, so the actual menus look new and fresh.

Menu and wine

The menu, for a change, oozes Belle Époque elegance. Even the font is right. And the paper feels velvety. Chantel took the effort to write down in the greatest amount of detail what the ingredients of the dish are, and what her inspiration was. Germain then added a description of each accompanying wine (if you take the wine pairing, of which there are two levels: ‘Enthusiast’ with local wines and ‘Connoisseur’ with international ones; I recommend that everyone takes the latter since the pairing is perfect).

The clever thing about writing it down is that 1) the staff can read it as many times as they need to also know what is going on (but don’t worry, later it emerges that all of them are superb and DO know what is going on) and 2) the need to ask questions by patrons is vastly reduced. All you need to know is there in front you.

They offer three tasting menus: Petite, Discovery and Grande Dégustation. The first two consist of elements of the latter, and on the first page of the menu the three options are very clearly laid graphically. The number of dishes is 7, 9 and 12 respectively.

All the dishes make sense together and are inspired by the CONCEPT of Spring, and not so much by specific Spring ingredients. Fortunately no attempts are made to fuse different styles from around the world, but solidly European inspired cooking. I can see Escoffier having done this in this day and age — his elaborateness but with a much lighter twist.

The Spring 2014 Menu seems to be inspired by moods, memories, the surroundings and travel inspirations; at least that is what Chantel wants us to believe. Maybe misguided, but I seem to detect some Klimt influences — Sunflower Spring, First Kiss, anyone else? Anyway, to me it all seems authentic and refreshing, different from some other prized restaurants around Johannesburg that rest on their laurels and never really give you an idea of what they are trying to tell through their tasting menus.

The wine list and cellar our out of this world. The wine collections is so vast, so unique, and so NOT pretentious. The reason some wines are very expensive is not because they want to impress the wrong sort of patrons (the nouveau rich bling crowd) but simply because they have had them for so long, and world prices have gone up.

That said, at R3,200 the 2003 Château d’Yquem (375ml) is practically a steal given that realistically you would be paying between R2,000 and R2,500 in a wine store in Europe. Had it been on the wine list at R6,000, I would have found it normal, but NOT bought it. There is some intelligence in the pricing of the wines in that they do not apply a fixed percentage mark-up but rather a reasonable amount in Rands. This is very interesting for serious wine drinkers: for once you can have outstanding, rare-to-find wines, at ‘reasonable’ prices.

Also very clever is that they import their own wines for the international wine pairing menu, mostly directly from the producers. That way, they avoid the wholesale mark-ups, and serve very interesting wines (but not well known) at very attractive prices. Very well worth it.

The class of Germain shines through in how he takes you through the cellar and talks about the crown jewels without ever trying to sell them or giving the impression you are wasting his time. At R37,000 per bottle, we both know that the 1982 Mouton Rothschild will only ever be purchased by a Russian oligarch or BEE tenderpreneur, and in both instances it would be a waste of this 100/100 Parker wine. Real wine lovers actually talk more about wine than they drink it, and this superb sommelier knowingly lets his guests indulge, and partakes, in this utterly senseless passtime. Simply delightful.

Service: summary

We arrived on the second day of their new season opening. There were very few other diners for lunch on this Saturday.

The wait staff blew me away. They are courteous, professional and they know their stuff. When I argued with one of them that the pea puree with my rainbow trout had to be made with a PacoJet, she told me NO (she knew what a PacoJet is!), explaining me how it is done (first pureeing, then pushing through a sieve), proving me utterly wrong. Where else do you find such confident and knowledgeable waiters?

My partner felt rushed at first, but I had to remind her that starting a 12-course tasting menu at 14:00 is a surefire way of putting the kitchen (that has to prep for evening service) under pressures. I, on the contrary, felt the pace absolutely spot on.

Only once did there seem to be a hiccup. When the sommelier came to top up the wine for the lobster course, and apologise for the delay did we realise another course should have arrived by now. Well, an extra glass of wine was welcome given that no inconvenience was experienced. Some recovery there!

Nice details: waiters come with small trays to replace your cutlery. How stylishly outdated.

In short, service is excellent because of Germain’s presence. His hawkish surveying of the dining room betrays that his responsibilities extend beyond pouring wine. Trained at La Tour d’Argent in the 1970s (when it still had three Michelin stars), he brings a wealth of experience regarding the clock-work operations of a fine establishment.

Food

The dishes as described on the menu find their way onto the plate, but not in a way that you expect. And that is a consequence of you creating a picture in your mind beforehand as a result of Chantel’s evocative descriptions. The discrepancy between expectation and reality is therefore rather interesting.

The food was prepared to exacting technical specifications, all the more impressive given the ‘sparse’ kitchen equipments. No Thermomix, no water baths, no PacoJets. A very traditional kitchen with very traditional equipment (a big LaCanche stove) and lots of copper pots from Dehilleren in Paris. I only saw ISI syphons and a dehydrator as modern tools. Very impressive.

The layering in each dish is spectacular, and with almost every dish there is a gentle unfolding of flavours. Take for example the carrot jelly, puree and orange blossom yoghurt cream with rosettes of pickled carrots.

All the dishes together provide a true kaleidoscope of taste experiences. You feel like you are in one of those Samsung handset adverts, where the protagonist slowly walks and the surroundings constantly change, without seeming to upset the wanderer: now a city, then the beach, in the meadows, on the farm.

There is a sensual lightness to all the dishes and the menu overall.

The only thing that did not work for me was the foie gras with the butternut foam. The liver does not stand up to the foam (although we were spooning the foam out of the bowl later), but a sliver of toast added to the foie grass will ‘break’ the dish, and if they ever do it, I will claim credit for it. Please note, we are nitpicking now.

Summary

I’ll be back!

(Based on lunch experience in August 2014)