Bellini’s, Illovo, Johannesburg

Because of my move away from the money belt of Jo’burg I hadn’t visited my favourite bistro for some time. The memory of the friendly, laid-back atmosphere, delicious hamburgers – and perfect spring weather one Saturday - lured me recently, and I made a call to book.

When I was told that no bookings were accepted, I remembered the friendly bar, where you lurk with your tipple (an excellent Bloody Mary is my experience) until a table becomes available.

The place is clever in its seeming simplicity, with Mediterranean-minimalist décor – crisp white napery and walls against dark furniture - a perfect canvass to the never-ending stream of designer-diners that have supported the place over the years.
The place is very cool, laid-back-haute, virtually begging for long leisurely lunches with smooth jazzy tunes in the background. The place is double-volumed, which enhances sound and consequently also a subliminal sense of bonhomie.

There’s a popular veranda, although you’d be brave to join your smoking friends, for the noise and carbon monoxide of the traffic on the corner of busy Oxford and NAME roads.

Over weekends, parking outside the restaurant is perfect for the cabriolets and shiny motorbikes (you can tell who the owners are – jackets are artfully draped over chairs with labels showing).

We arrived a little after the lunch-hour rush (“open from 11am to 11pm on Saturdays”) and once seated and a bit of a wait, the menu was delivered. We ordered wine from the blackboard menu – a short but cleverly chosen list with reasonable prices) and waited for service. Not that it mattered too much at that point. We were watching and discussing the deeply hip, air-kissing, designer–set diners. Thankfully there’s not too much sanitized Sandton in evidence, but more the tanned older guys with their yacht-inspired gear and skinny female partners exposing various body parts.

What I remembered from my previous good times there was the short menu that included good salads and hamburgers - almost on a par with the best in Johannesburg at Chuckleberry’s in Rivonia.

The menu also includes sandwiches (grilled vegetable bruschetta (R44) and steak (R49,50), for instance). Salads are the typically delicious lunchtime ones like bacon, blue cheese and avocado, and steak and rocket (R55). ‘Meals’, Dijon fillet (R82,50), baked potato with sour cream, pesto, bacon, cheese and chives (R48,50) or with smoked salmon (R50), fillet, egg and chips R76,50), Prego roll (48), chicken peri peri (R66,50) and so on.

Between the two of us, we ordered a hamburger (delivered with mounds of near-perfect pommes-frit, and a chicken liver salad (the livers perfectly-pink on the inside).

Up front, I have to confess to a hopelessly slavering love of garlic. Apart form its well-known medicinal properties (including cholesterol-lowering, for instance) is that it protects pets and other friends from being invaded by fleas. But we don’t want to know about these noble benefits when we’re out with friends having a –eating-drinking-laughing time.

Or that garlic also has a reputation for being an aphrodisiac. So much so, declares one website that Tibetan monks were forbidden from entering monasteries if they’d eaten garlic. This is presumably because of that reputation for inflaming the passions, and not about that garlic breath – surely they’d know about eating fresh parsley. I certainly know it works.

But surely there’s no dispute that garlic is delicious. Enter you host’s home before dinner, and the fragrance of cooking garlic immediately seems to enhance anticipation of the meal and whatever else might accompany or follow.

Back to my Saturday lunch: When we placed our order, we checked that the livers would be made with garlic. We were told by the mumbling and clearly untrained waiter that there was no garlic in the kitchen. We could only assume that between the three of us there was some breakdown in communication. We asked to see the manager.

A hair-gelled man with the tableside manner of a Mongolian construction worker arrived and barked, “What’s wrong with that?”, when we showed incredulity about the complete absence of garlic on the premises. Further prompting elicited no intelligent response.

Nevertheless, the time spent there was pleasant, quaffing a bottle of Steenberg Sauvignon Blanc (R117) from a short but cleverly chosen and well priced list that offered one label from a number of South African cultivars.

I’ve never really subscribed to a mound of sweet stuff after a meal, so I didn’t try any of the desserts. However, people do pop in during the day for coffee and a generous slice of chocolate cashew cake (R26), carrot cake (R20) or – and perhaps there’s a line between this and the garlic-deficient menu – wheat free cake (R26).

In a way, Bellini’s is a designer-Spur and perhaps I shouldn’t expect too much from this neighborhood eatery. But the place has been here for years, with the same formula, year after year. But the surprise is in the food - deceptively simple, good quality, with blackboard specials.

In the end, the place is infused with the friendly, expansive spirit of its owner. The service is uneven, mostly uninformed and arbitrary but somehow owner Jenny Richardson’s personality, even when she’s not there (like when I was there), permeates.

By Gwynne Conlyn

Average three course meal: R120

Rating:
Food: Deceptively simple, excellent quality
Winelist: Short but sufficient
Ambience: Chic
Service: Shambling
Value:  Money well spent

18 Chaplin road, Illovo. Tel: (011) 880 9168; no bookings.
Open Monday – Friday 11.30 – 3pm for lunch, 6 – 11pm for dinner.Saturdays 11.30 – 11pm. Closed Sundays.