What top SA chefs are cooking for Christmas this year

We also found out who they will be sharing their festive meal with and who will be doing the cooking and the washing up. Their answers will have you rolling.

Fortunato Mazzone: chef and owner of Forti Grill and Bar in Pretoria

I will be working at my restaurant on Christmas Day but my family will join me here for lunch.

Some of the dishes we will be serving include a starter of vegetarian risotto made with arborio rice, smoked provolone, shitake mushrooms and cumin dressed in parsley oil, slow roasted leg of lamb served with rich lamb jus, garlic and rosemary, roasted potatoes and sautéed spinach.

For dessert, because it’s Christmas, profiteroles served with strega cream and fresh fruit sorbet, old school Christmas trifle with sherry. My team and I will cook, and my brilliant scullers will wash up.

Fortunato Mazzone. Picture: Supplied

Jackie Righi-Boyd: chef and owner of Dolci Café, Joburg

For Christmas Day lunch, which we’ll be sharing with friends and family, my mom (who is of the opinion that I can’t cook!) will make a traditional Italian Christmas lunch consisting of cappelletti in brodo (little hat-shaped pasta in a meaty, clear broth) followed by a variety of meats including ox tongue with salsa verde and to finish it all off, a panettone.

We have a rule in our home that whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean, so the washing up will be done by my husband (co-owner and actor Clayton Boyd) and myself.

Warren Swaffield, chef at Tables at Nitida, Durbanville Wine Valley

This year, we are doing something a little different: cold roast gammon, cold roast turkey, and an assortment of fillings for wraps.

But first, I will go to the restaurant to greet the staff and wish them all merry Christmas, check all is in order and then head back home for our festive lunch which my wife Justine and I will prepare to enjoy with our three sons, my folks, Justine’s mother and her family.

As to who will be doing the washing up, the answer is … me. There is something about washing up after a great meal that gives me comfort. Weird, I know.

Emma Chen. Picture: Grand Bushby

Emma Chen, chef and owner of Red Chamber at Hyde Park and PRON at Linden in Joburg

It will be a Christmas dinner for us, not lunch. Red Chamber always opens for Christmas lunch and then we have a Christmas dinner for staff. There’ll be a fusion of Chinese and African dishes. The main ingredient is a whole lamb, and the staff is at liberty to buy whatever they would like to cook.

Normally, the menu consists of egg and mayonnaise salad, a beetroot salad, pan-fried chakalaka lamb, roast lamb with garlic and chili, crispy lamb ribs, cumin lamb on skewers, five-spice chicken wings, boiled Chinese wonton, and lamb and turnip soup, as well as rice and pap.  Plus a few Christmas puddings of course and lots of beers and cold drinks.

When it comes to the washing up, everybody has to help load the dishes.

Amori Burger: chef at Van Der Linde at Linden, Johannesburg

The family will have dinner at my mother’s house. Every year we take it in turns, and this year I am in charge of the starter. I will be making burrata (cheese made from mozzarella and cream) with fermented pumpkin, rye and wild flower honey. We all serve up, and afterwards we clear and pack the dishwasher.

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