Category: Cooking, Food & Wine

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Chef Talk: Chantel Dartnall’s South African Wine and Food Fantasia (Wine Spectator)

In 2006, chef Chantel Dartnall opened Restaurant Mosaic at her family’s Orient Hotel on a nature reserve outside Pretoria in South Africa’s Crocodile River Valley as a showcase for the European techniques and cuisine she had honed in Michelin-starred kitchens in the United Kingdom. But her surroundings—nearly 700 acres of “the most pristine nature you can imagine” in the Francolin Conservancy—soon became a guiding inspiration. She now defines her approach as “botanical cuisine—to feature Mother Nature on a plate, where each dish is designed to reflect the beauty, balance, harmony and purity that you find in nature.”

That harmony extends to wine selections and pairings. Dartnall, 38, runs the restaurant with her father, Cobus Du Plessis, and mother, Mari Dartnall, the wine director and general manager, respectively. The family takes pride in showing off local Cape wines, which comprise some 60 percent of Mosaic’s cellar. With 6,000 selections and 75,000 bottles of inventory, Mosaic has one of the most extensive programs in Wine Spectator‘s Restaurant Awards program, earning our highest honor, the Grand Award, in 2018; the list also has exceptional reserves of Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne (the Jacquart Brut Mosaïque is a current favorite), as well as depth in Italy, Portugal, Germany and Spain. Every year, Dartnall, her family and her wine team make trips to vineyards and cellars in different parts of the world to shop for wine. Then, to complete the pairings, “we visit the markets, and that is how the influences and the flavors and the inspiration of those countries come together in dishes.”

Dylan Swart

The dish “Francolin’s Forest Fungi” is Chantel Dartnell’s wild mushroom and black truffle risotto.

Dartnall began cooking at a young age, attending culinary school and then working with Paul Rhodes at Chez Nico at Ninety Park Lane in London, and British chef Michael Caines. When she returned home to South Africa, Dartnall’s cuisine blossomed into something melding Western and Eastern influences with backyard ingredients. Dartnall spoke to editorial assistant Brianne Garrett about how she develops Mosaic’s unique pairings, the dynamics of going to work every day with her immediate family and a new ongoing project that’s keeping her busy.

Wine Spectator: What inspires your cooking style and techniques at Mosaic?
Chantel Dartnall: Everyone always asks me what style of cooking I have, and the closest interpretation that I could give is that we do botanical cooking. The one reference I could give is Michel Bras in Aubrac, France. It’s a very natural, very earthy approach. In the portrayal of this philosophy and inventing these dishes, we’ve become a lot more focused on really featuring the purest elements on the plate. It is not only about capturing nature’s natural nuances, but also to focus on [improving] the experience for my guests by studying the medicinal properties of the edible herbs and flowers I include in the menu to aid in digestion, promote blood circulation and a general feeling of wellbeing. For example, fennel aids digestion and stops bloating and the hibiscus flower helps to reduce the symptoms of alcohol.

WS: What’s your approach on food-and-wine matching, and what are some favorite current pairings at Mosaic?
CD: There are a lot of local wines, because we love supporting our local industry. But when it comes to the pairing, we need to see what is in season, what is in harmony and also which of the wines in our cellar are at their optimal “drink-after” date. So we listen to winemakers at this point if they say, “You know what, my wine needs to age five years, I suggest that you pull it out of the cellar [then], retaste it and then try and see if there’s a dish that complements it.” So we take those notes into account when we do our pairings.

I think my ultimate favorite we are currently featuring is the 2013 Lismore Chardonnay from a local South African producer in Greyton, Samantha O’Keefe. It’s just the most feminine Chardonnay that you can imagine. And we’re pairing this with a dish that I call the “Francolin’s Forest Fungi”—a wild mushroom and black truffle risotto.

We’ve also got the “The Flavours of Indochine” on the menu [suckling pig, coconut curry and star anise], and we’re serving this with a Trimbach Gewürztraminer Reserve 2007, which is just really combining with those exotic oriental flavors [in the dish] and is magnificent!

WS: What’s the dynamic like working alongside your family?
CD: Everybody always says that you should not work with family, but for me I find that there’s nothing better than working with family because it’s very hard to find people that share your passion and enthusiasm, putting in all of those hours just because they have the same goal. So my mom is with me every single day, she’s on the floor as my maître d. A very, very large portion of what happens overall, including the maintenance of the garden, everything is her hand.

Cobus, my dad, is the mastermind behind all of the design, including the architecture, the wine cellar. I think what makes us special is that everybody that comes through the door says it literally feels like they are visiting a family home. Irrespective of the fact that it’s a fine dining establishment, it’s a comfortable and welcoming environment.

Most of my staff has also been with us every since we opened the restaurant and they’ve come with us the entire journey. Moses Magwaza, our sommelier, initially started as our gardener, and he is in the final processes of his [sommelier] examinations.

WS: Are you working on any exciting projects heading into 2019?
CD: I am also happy to say that I am having a lot of fun working on my cookbook. It’s a rather lengthy prospect and the aim is to release toward the end of 2020, when Restaurant Mosaic celebrates our 15th birthday. One version is all hand-bound and will be filled with real pressed flowers and leaves with hand-written recipes. So this is a long-term project.

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Private Cellars: Director’s Cut (Wine Spectator)

When Lev Spiro began receiving residuals from his work in film and television, he did what any enterprising young director would do—invest in Bordeaux futures. “My wife said, ‘You’re crazy!’ ” he says, laughing. “Of course, she’s changed her tune on that.”

Like a self-financed cult film, Spiro’s initial outlay has enjoyed a long tail, paying dividends to its creator 15 years down the line. Just shy of 600 bottles, the collection is focused on Bordeaux, with smaller allocations of Burgundy, California, Italy and Spain. For Spiro, whose credits include The Tick, currently airing on Amazon, and the Netflix dramedy Insatiable, as well as TV stalwarts such as Orange Is the New Black, Modern Family and Gilmore Girls, it’s a fantasy come to life.

His introduction to wine took place far from Hollywood, in a “very good continental dining room” in Madison, Wis., where he worked as a waiter while attending college. “I got to taste a lot of really excellent French wines that way,” he says.

You’ve seen this movie before: Man buys wine fridge, fills it up. Man buys bigger fridge, fills that too. Finally, man and his wife—writer-producer Melissa Rosenberg, who penned the scripts for the five Twilight movies, was head writer on the first four seasons of Dexter and is the creator and showrunner of Jessica Jones—design and build their dream home, thereby creating exciting new possibilities for wine storage.

At first, the home cellar resembled a crawlspace more than a cave. “It was going to be kind of a small room that you had to access from the outside and duck your head through a hatch with a 4-foot-high ceiling,” he says. But in the course of blueprinting a basement mechanical area, the architects approached Spiro with a better idea. “They said, ‘You know, we could put a stairwell down there and make it a little bigger and give you an actual wine cellar,’ ” he recalls. “And I said, ‘Yes!’ ”

The space began as a blank slate—”a big concrete room.” Combining ideas he’d developed through Internet research with practical recommendations from a designer—space to hold glassware, dedicated storage for large-formats and cases—the dungeonlike atmosphere of the basement gave way to the warm, inviting character found elsewhere in the home.

“I wanted two things in the cellar,” he says. “I wanted it to be beautiful. But I also didn’t want a lot of chemicals. I wanted the wine to breathe good air. So [the cabinetry] is all walnut and it’s coated with olive oil. It smells really good in there.”

Spiro quickly set about stocking the 1,250-bottle-capacity space. Among his treasures are bottles of Haut-Brion 2000, 2001 and 2007, as well as verticals of Angélus, Larcis Ducasse and Smith-Haut-Lafitte. In addition to his beloved Right and Left Bank reds, he has also developed an appreciation for California Cabernets and blends, citing Duckhorn’s The Discussion bottling, Trujillo Madelynne and Cardinale as current favorites.

He tempers his connoisseurship with realism and restraint. “I don’t go crazy,” he says of his purchasing habits. “I will keep buying futures, two or three cases a year, because I anticipate my personal drinking window extending for another 40 years or so.”

For now, the goal is to drink it all, preferably with friends and family. “In our circle, I’m the proselytizer of wine,” says Spiro. “I like taking people down to the cellar and showing them around, and they talk about which bottles they’re going to try and steal when I’m not looking.”

Spiro is eyeing new categories for expansion in the future. Trips to Burgundy, Spain and Italy have opened his eyes to the riches of those winelands, and in a nod to Rosenberg’s tastes he is upping his stores of Chardonnay. “I got her into Chassagne-Montrachet, which is my favorite white wine.”

But perhaps the ultimate addition to the collection would be a case of the still-unbottled Château Spiro. “I have a fantasy of growing grapes on my property and making wine,” he says. To weather the hot climate, he’s considered Spanish and Portuguese varieties—maybe even grapes for Port.

Man falls in love with wine, man builds dream cellar, man makes Port in Southern California. Now that’s a film we haven’t seen before.

WHAT’S IN LEV SPIRO’S CELLAR

Location: Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles
Number of bottles: 575
Large-format bottles: Forman Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2004 (1.5L), signed by the producer
Oldest wines: Château Lynch Bages 1996, Château Palmer 1996
Selected verticals: Château Angélus 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008; Château Figeac 2000, 2005, 2007; Château Haut-Brion 2000, 2001 and 2007; Château Larcis Ducasse 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012; Château Malescot-St.-Exupéry 2005, 2009, 2012; Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte 2005-2009, 2011, 2012
Cellar temperature: 56˚ F
Humidity: 70 percent

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Sonoma County Wine Auction Reaches New Heights, Raising $5.7 Million (Wine Spectator)

The Sonoma County Wine Auction is an annual chance for vintners to help those in need and celebrate the region’s bounty. But this year, the need for help was close to home—the event focused on rebuilding efforts following last October’s devastating wine-country wildfires. Attendees responded by bidding generously for a collection of world-class wine experiences at the live auction on Saturday, Sept. 22, raising $5.7 million for charity, surpassing last year’s high of $5.2 million.

The auction, held this year at La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard, in Windsor, is one of wine country’s top charity events. Organized by the Sonoma County Vintners, it has raised nearly $35 million since its inception, with proceeds going to more than 70 local nonprofits supporting education, literacy, health and environmental services and the arts.

The theme for this year’s event was revival, with a focus on recovery efforts and building affordable housing for the thousands of local residents who lost their homes during the fires.

“We believed it was really important for this auction to help rebuild and revitalize Sonoma County,” George Hamel Jr., the auction’s honorary chair and founder of Sonoma’s Hamel Family Wines, told Wine Spectator. The fires only damaged a few wineries and vineyards in Sonoma County but they destroyed more than 5,300 homes, including Hamel’s.

Emotions ran high for the annual Fund-a-Need lot, with guests raising their paddles to donate at various price levels to help rebuilding efforts in Sonoma. The Hamel Family Foundation set the tone, donating $300,000. Christopher Jackson of Jackson Family Wines quickly matched that amount on behalf of his company. E. & J. Gallo donated $150,000, while other prominent Sonoma vintners and wineries each bid $100,000.

Chef Nancy Oakes of Boulevard in San Francisco, who was an honoree at the event, got in on the action as well, offering to hold a truffle dinner for guests who agreed to donate $50,000 to the Fund-a-Need lot. Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Shimmon offered to increase the final bid for the lot to an even $2.5 million.

The live auction was the capstone to three days of wine- and food-fueled events. The festivities started Thursday night with a party at Paradise Ridge in the Russian River Valley, a Sonoma winery that was heavily damaged by the fires but has begun rebuilding.

On Saturday, the mood was festive inside the auction tent as 350 wine lovers gathered to celebrate. Auctioneer John Curley entertained the crowd, keeping the energy high and the paddles flying. “There was a feeling in the tent like there has never been before,” said Hamel. “The generosity of the people just blew everyone away.”

Bidding was generous for the top lot, a five-course dinner at the Charles M. Schultz museum and a private concert by Grammy Award winner George Winston, sponsored by Hamel Family Wines. When the gavel fell, 46 couples had paid $10,000 each for the opportunity, for a grand total of $460,000, making it the highest amount raised for a single lot in the auction’s history.

There was a tie for the other two top-grossing lots of the day. Shimmon paid $190,000 for a trip for four to the 2019 men’s Wimbledon final, including accommodations and a dinner with Wimbledon legend Tim Henman. That was matched by a dinner for eight with Nancy Oakes, prepared by fellow chefs, including Gary Danko, Michael Tusk and Tyler Florence, that pulled in $95,000. Oakes then doubled the lot, for a total of $190,000.

The highest wine-only lot came from Michael Browne, owner of Cirq winery and a founder of Kosta Browne, which included a 21-bottle library selection of Pinot Noirs ranging from standard-size bottles up to 5 liters. The winning bid was $80,000. “To have this in our hometown is huge,” said Browne, who noted that the fires brought the community closer together. “It hits close to home for everyone in the community, since everybody knows someone that was affected.”

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8 & $20 Recipe: Butternut Squash Noodle Shrimp “Pad Thai” with a French White Wine (Wine Spectator)

Eight ingredients, plus pantry staples. That’s all it takes to make an entire meal from scratch. Add in a good bottle of wine for less than $20, and you’ve got a feast for family or friends.

Here we have a rare gem of a dish: Not only is it fast and easy, but you can load up your plate because it’s also quite healthy. I love pad thai, but some take-out versions can be packed with calories, fat and sodium. Swapping veggie noodles in for rice noodles lightens the dish in one easy move while giving it a nutritional boost.

I typically make my own veggie noodles at home with a spiralizer; however, certain vegetables can be harder to work with. For speed, I opted for store-bought noodles made from butternut squash, perfect for the transition into fall, as their earthy sweetness is a nice complement to the sweet-savory pad thai sauce. To suit your tastes and the season, you can try this with other squash or root vegetables.

As for the sauce—based on tamarind paste, fish sauce and palm sugar or brown sugar—I also purchased it pre-made for weeknight convenience. (Check the ingredients label to keep an eye on the dish’s total calorie count and sodium content.) But if you have a favorite homemade pad thai sauce recipe, that’s even better.

Pad thai can be customized with add-ins and toppings to your heart’s content. I picked a few items—chiles, bean sprouts, green onions, peanuts, cilantro and lime—but other nuts, bell pepper strips or scrambled egg would all be great options.

On the wine front, I would typically reach straight for an off-dry version of an aromatic white like Riesling or Gewürztraminer to pair with a dish that has a combination of sweet, sour and savory flavors and a touch of heat. However, I thought I’d use this occasion to explore some dry whites: a Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc and a white blend from Côtes du Roussillon in the south of France.

The Sauvignon Blanc’s notes of green apple, bell pepper and lime fit right in with the flavors of the dish and made for a refreshing pairing. The fleshier Roussillon white—a supple blend of Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Macabeu and Marsanne—had notes of melon, golden apple, flowers and spice. While its profile worked with the warm nuttiness of the squash pad thai, the food brought out mineral notes and a crisper texture in the wine. Ultimately, the match brought an extra layer of complexity that made it our favorite of the day.

Butternut Squash Noodle Shrimp “Pad Thai”

Pair with a white Rhône-style blend such as M. Chapoutier Côtes du Roussillon White Les Vignes de Bila-Haut 2016 (90 points, $15).

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Approximate food costs: $29

  • 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 24 ounces (about 4 1/2 cups) butternut squash noodles
  • 2 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 2 serrano chiles, seeds and ribs removed
  • 2 cups bean sprouts
  • 6 ounces pad thai sauce, store-bought or homemade
  • 3 to 4 green onions, sliced thinly
  • 1/4 cup peanuts, crushed (optional, for garnish)
  • 1 or 2 limes, quartered (optional)
  • 1/4 cup lightly chopped cilantro (optional, for garnish)
  • canola oil or peanut oil

1. Heat a small amount of cooking oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp and sauté until cooked through, about 5 to 6 minutes. Set aside.

2. If needed, wipe the pan and/or add a little more oil. Add the garlic and chiles to the pan, cook for about 30 seconds, then add the squash noodles. Cook for about 7 minutes over medium to medium-high heat until the noodles are nearly tender, tossing frequently. Add the bean sprouts and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the shrimp back to the pan, then add the pad thai sauce gradually, stirring gently until all the noodles are sufficiently coated to your taste and everything is warmed through.

3. Serve the noodle mixture in bowls and garnish with the green onions, cilantro, crushed peanuts and lime quarters, if using. Serves 4.