Faff

 

I was therefore puzzled when Dave Wallace named his new Johannesburg restaurant Faff . A gourmet of note and an astute businessman (Wallace took the original and irresistible Singing Fig of Jaco Welgemoed and Ian Mills to even greater heights before subsequent owners ran it into the ground) is the last person who’d let his staff faff about. Buying back the original premises, a name change was clearly necessary, but why a four-letter word beginning with “f”?

The menu’s front page explains. Guests are encouraged to “chill and be relaxed” by “not having to be decisive”. In other words, to faff . The menu facilitates this by offering “Dégustation Plates” at every course. Faffers who are tempted by two or even three of the listed choices need agonise no further: like Monty Python’s explosive Mr Creosote, they can, quite simply, “’ave the lot!”

In its pure form, I am quite sure that didn’t evolve solely to placate prevaricators, but the idea of demystifying came to Wallace last year while eating his way around Europe (he missed El Bulli but came back sensibly praising Copenhagen’s Noma above The Fat Duck): why should only sophisticated diners get their tastebuds titillated kaleidoscopically but neighbourhood suburban customers have to make do with one starter, main and sweet? At Faff you can order duo or trio plates of soups or starters, pastas, mains, cheese and sweets. They even accommodate a ménage à trois of vegetable side dishes. We devoured our grilled radicchio with warm vinaigrette, brunoise spuds with rock salt and rosemary and cannellini beans with saff ron emulsion – a composite that would make an ambrosial main course for a vegetarian.

My first glass of Cape Point Vineyards Sémillon 2006 (a typical example of the winelist’s calibre) started me thinking about Faff's mission to demystify dégustation. Most smart foods evolved as refined variations of some or other everyday fare. Small portions are congruent with the calorie-watching, figure-conscious modern world. Why, then, is the average prole at ease with meze or tapas, but daunted by ?

Meze are readily shared among tables of friends, between bashing plates and ogling belly-dancers. Tapas conjures up images of feral vixens nibbling bite-size appetisers before homing in on the main course (the man who tosses the most magnetic car-keys onto the cocktail bar counter). stands apart (or has been driven apart) from generally recognised comfort zones. Why? A meze meal presents multiple flavours from a region; is about the skills of a particular chef. That makes it a more intimate interaction than a societal experience. Some may find it too personal. Others may perceive the French language as larney or suspect that cost is proportional to the number of syllables.

Not so. I recently had a sublime six-course dégustation menu at Jardine in Cape Town for much the same price as a totally ordinary three-course set menu Sunday lunch at Joburg’s most popular Italian country restaurant. George Jardine just managed to fill his 60 covers. The other place turned over its 300 seats twice. Popularity is all about perceptions – some of them misinformed.

The Faff model aims to correct the misconception by showing that is interesting, fun, adventurous. And affordable – a trio costs the same here as a single conventional course.

Moreover, in a province that expects value for money, the fractions of a plate quantitatively match a regular course. This formula seems too good to be true. Plating three small portions is close to three times more labour-intensive than plating a single larger one. Can a restaurant absorb such costs for the sake of establishing its (undeniably individualistic) identity?

Faff ’s chef is confident that he can do this. He is John Sadie, whose credentials include 5 Star hotel restaurants (Steenberg, The Atlantic, the last days of the Three Ships) and stints on upmarket cruise ships and in even smarter game lodges. Most notably he worked at Linger Longer, whose exec chef Walter Ulz has a small stake in Faff and provides the healthy creative stimulus of peer review.

Another self-imposed challenge is to present trios on single plates. The accent is on attractive but unshowy platings. The obviously critical need to avoid unintended flavour contaminations is averted by choice of crockery. Where sauces don’t run, three samples may occupy one large plate. In other cases, the same plate contains three bowls. Waiters need to have muscular arms.

Faff ’s appeal isn’t merely the novel spin on . Unlike countless Joburg bistros that try to please everyone with a confusion of Afro-Cajun Mediter-Asian menu items, I like the food’s confident sense of identity – a modern European style of classical principles expressed without the rich sauces of yore.

Typical examples of the winter soups: French onion with Gruyère toasts; saffron-scented creamed leek; and the charming “pour your own” bouillabaisse with aïoli and ciabatta. A cauliflower panna cotta on pomegranatedressed baby greens is typical of Sadie’s “less is more” approach: few ingredients, clean flavours, high satisfaction.

Eating one’s way down the menu, each course cranks temptation up a gear. It’s harrowing to choose among pappardelle with braised duck leg, mushrooms, thyme and chestnuts; the seafood and fennel fettuccine; and their gnocchi with mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts and sage butter. Then you remember that you don’t have to and you feel happy again.

A certain amount of modular matching emerges as you read further. The buttered gnocchi reappear with their succulent take on boeuf bourguignon, and the brunoise potatoes get their curtain call as the supporting act for the flame-grilled sirloin béarnaise. Grilled radicchio returns to bolster polenta-crusted salmon and crab cakes, accompanied by creamed potato: its ginger and honey jus is about as far east as this menu ventures.

Appropriately for such a menu, cheeses are mostly French and Italian imports. The most alluring dessert is a coconut semifreddo, sprinkled with grated Belgian chocolate of undeclared brand, paired with a buttermilk and lemon sherbet. The whole thing is tantalisingly presented in an ice-bowl with fresh green herbs frozen into it.

Where a classic three-course meal lends itself perfectly to wine pairing, Faff ’s repetitive dégustations obviously make that harder to arrange. Their compromise is that over 30 wines can be ordered by glass or carafe. Although vintages aren’t printed, theirs is a seriously desirable list of a dozen choices of each mainstream grape variety or blend and half as many of less fashionable styles. There’s even a section of organic and low-sulphur wines. Few bottles have double-figure prices but the mark-ups on higher pedigrees are not unreasonable.

Faff cleverly retains some of the flavour of the dear old Fig – warm colours and vibrant new fruit-and-veg commissioned artworks – but visible improvements like high-backed chairs, smart tableware and a much-needed new ceiling that dampen the room’s previously cacophonous acoustics have breathed new life into the old place. But it’s the fact that most of the new investment – both creative and financial – has been channelled in the culinary direction that makes Faff stand out from an amorphous cohort of newcomers that overspend on visual and ambient appeal and make do with kitchens that only fill the belly but fail to nourish the soul.

Address: Faff, 44 The Avenue, Norwood, Johannesburg.
Tel: 011 728 2434.
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