David Higgs. Picture: Supplied
David Higgs. Picture: Supplied

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AWARD-winning chef David Higgs’s new Johannesburg restaurant, Marble, is set to open in May, Higgs and business partner Gary Kyriacou said on Monday.

Higgs is one of SA’s better-known chefs. Restaurants he has cooked at have won numerous awards, including Stellenbosch’s Rust en Vrede’s coming 74th in the 2010 San Pellegrino Top 100 Restaurants in the World rankings. Marble, in bustling, fashionable Rosebank, will bring the trend of live-fire cooking — growing internationally — to Johannesburg. Not, of course, that South Africans are unfamiliar with cooking over an open flame.

"The one thing that we all do, regardless of race, colour, is eat meat, and we like to cook it on fires," says Higgs. "Marble will take that experience to the next level.... Fires, gatherings, sharing ... sitting around a table creates conversation. It was clear from Gary that he wanted that geselligheid, conviviality."

The 200-seater restaurant will also feature another growing trend — a rooftop bar that will take advantage of Johannesburg’s temperate climate and the restaurant site’s 180° view across the city towards the Magaliesberg mountains. A side business will be a butchery that will supply the restaurant, partly to control the quality of the restaurant’s meat and its treatment, such as ageing or smoking.

"Take our lamb," says Higgs. "Karoo, Eastern Cape, Kalahari, they all have different flavour profiles. That, and a great South African wine list."

While South African meat will be central to the Marble menu, Higgs is determined that the restaurant will not be overly masculine, in terms of menu and in terms of decor and ambience. "Not only meat, also fish. I am Namibian, we grew up with fish, and vegetables on a fire are just the most incredible thing if you cook them slowly overnight.... Gary’s wife, Irene has been dealing with the interior. There is marble, but we don’t want marble all over the place."

One of the menu features will be what Higgs and Kyriacou call sharing dishes. "So, if we get an incredible piece of Angus beef, 2kg of that, it can serve four together. Or if we get incredible brisket, that can be smoked. It’s the whole Sunday lunch sort of vibe."

It was 18 months ago that Kyriacou, who had been harbouring the idea of a restaurant such as Marble for a long time, contacted Higgs. "From all my travels, I thought I really need to do something special and that matured into Marble. The piece of the puzzle that I really needed was a great chef, and that’s David."

Higgs is known as a fine dining chef, so Marble, pitched between haute cuisine and Johannesburg’s more usual business lunch fare, is something different. "I am really looking forward to having fun," he says. "Fine dining is about being creative, but I will almost have to be more creative in this spot. Cooking for 25-40 people a night against 200 ... this gives me a wider audience."

The men also mean to make "a huge impact from the service side of things".

"There is so much competition, there are so many restaurants. Service is where you can make an impact. It’s just training," says Higgs.

Higgs started his career in the Western Cape, coming to Johannesburg in 2011. Kyriacou is a serial entrepreneur who was involved with the hospitality programme for the 2010 Fifa World Cup.