A new bakery in Nieu-Bethesda is adding to a richness of slow food (and drink) that is helping Helen Martins’ famed little village set a new culinary course. By Peter Frost.
Ian Allemann is busy with the final touches to a lamb shank that is literally falling off the bone. His partner, Katrin, is serving up pap and rice. From the open-plan kitchen at The Karoo Lamb restaurant (opposite the Owl House), the smells reach the five tables in the converted cattle shed, where weary wanderers wait patiently. It’s a communal, ‘bord kos’ kind of affair – more friend’s dining room than restaurant.
Just as the plates find their way to the salivating assembled, two Afghan hounds walk through the door, trailing a guy in skinny jeans with a face that suggests an interesting life. It’s Andre du Toit, recently moved to town and owner-manager of Manna, the new cake and coffee shop on Pienaar Street that less well-known part of town across the fossil-rich riverbed. It’s a great spectacle, very Bethesda, and I’m hoping his new business is as intriguing as his entrance.
The next morning, invitation procured, his 1870 Victorian welcomes a group of us. There’s a reason Nieu-Bethesda is so beloved in the collective mind – places like this feed an insatiable desire for real Karoo oasis living. Bethesda’s famed pear trees line his dappled back garden, Spirit and Yasar sprawl elegantly as only Afghans can and the smells… the smells.
Andre’s idea is simple – excellent coffee, superior baking, the best ingredients, no rush, no cut corners. Arrive, sit (outside – inside is his sanctuary), absorb, slow down, watch (the bareback horse riders pass by), listen (to his unstructured jazz and the Karoo robin) and,finally, eat. There is no menu, no waiter. What Andre makes, you eat.
His burgeoning reputation is based on his light, buttery, freshly baked croissants and layered pain au chocolat, but, depending on his mood, there might be a lemon cake, Zoffia’s black velvet cake, an olive oil cake, a gluten-free chocolate and almond creation, pumpkin and white chocolate slices, goat’s milk cheesecake, fresh fruit tarts or who knows what. It’s all thick and heavy – real cakes, real tastes, real cream, real chocolate, real memories.
The man himself will probably join the assembled after the cake has been served. He hails from it’s-not-entirely-clear-where, with a string of pursuits that hardly suggests food as a central theme: backpackers manager, landscape designer, shipping officer in Mozambique, horticulturalist, print maker, fine artist – and his Finnish is pretty good. It’s all so Nieu-Bethesda, a current vocation fed from a life well spent. He has just returned from Flanders and France, a fat French cookbook weighing down his hand luggage, a present from his daughter’s new stepfather.
‘I can’t read a word. Not yet.’ There’s promise in his voice. The Bethesda translations would be reason enough for an Eastern Cape diversion.
Check out the Facebook page facebook.com/karoomanna, or tel: 072 636 9167.
Stay in Nieu-Bethesda
The Water Tower in Martin Street is a converted water tower with a double bedroom, an open deck upstairs and a kitchen downstairs.
nieu-bethesda.com
The Tower at the Bethesda Arts Centre, in Muller Street, is truly unique, a Rapunzel-like fairytale space that has rooms on the first and second floor.
nieubethesda.org
About Nieu-Bethesda
The long-awaited, much debated tarred road to the floor of the valley hasn’t altered the town’s essence; the prophets of doom have been nixed. Change, such that it is, revolves around the stewardship of the Owl House, in the news as various warring parties trade blows, fighting essentially for the same thing – to keep Helen Martins’ legacy intact.
The Karoo Lamb restaurant (049 841 1642) is the unofficial centre of the village and Ian Allemann’s recently finished, popular pub, the Ramstal (the same phone number as The Karoo Lamb) is the sundowners spot of choice.
The Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre leads trips into the nearby Gats River fossil beds and André Cilliers’ goat’s cheese and home-brewed beer at The Two Brewery and Two Goats Deli is popular, as is dinner under the stars at the Bethesda Arts Centre.
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