B
yD avid Fingleton
Zim is in
IN HOLIDAY terms it seems that Zim is in: each elderly British Airways 747 flies to Harare and back full, and the place is crammed with tourists. It also appears that The Spectator is 'in' in Zimbabwe. Its 80,000 or so whites, when not dining in Harare's fair range of agreeable restaurants, seem to spend their leisure hours reading and endorsing the magazine. It therefore seemed appropriate in a spirit of mutual goodwill that following a short February holiday there I should write about some of Harare's restaurants.
The two finest establishments in town are both highly individual and both in convert- ed private houses. The former City of Lon- don accountant John Ford's Imba Matombo, in the suburb of Glen Lorne, is a Pretty rural house surrounded by thatched rondavels in which up to 16 guests may stay. Ford has recently become Zimbabwe's first member of the distinguished French Relais et Châteaux chain, and has engaged an able young French chef, Jean-Luc Mon- cellet, from the Touraine. The attractive doling- room, divided into three pleasingly furnished sections, has excellent service under the watchful eye of Jean-Lue's Zim- babwean fiancée, Kiera. There is a four- Course dinner, including aperitif, house wine and coffee at, for Zimbabwe, the rela- tively high price of $350. At about 17.5 Zim dollars to the pound, this works out at a very reasonable £20 a head for us.
I dined at Imba Matombo with the delightful and `tre s gourmande' secretary to the French ambassador to Zimbabwe, Frangoise Largement, who became my astute gastronomic guide to Harare. Chef Jean-Luc was in cracking form. Frangoise began with an excellent gratin of fresh mus- sels in an admirably light champagne sabay- on., and I ate some lovely fresh asparagus (a Zunbabwean speciality) in impeccable fib pastry with a subtle sauce of red pepper and ginger with a hint of curry: superb. olext Francoise chose some good salmon en croute in a creamy garlic sauce, and I had excellent Zimbabwean fillet of beef in a red vane sauce with snails: for me a new and effective combination. After this we both tried Jean-Luc's creme brillee, which was a flue cream, but puzzlingly served warm and with a soft top — not ideal. We were too full to tackle the Zimbabwean cheeses and ended with good coffee served with choco- lates. We drank a magnificent 1993 Hamil- ton Russell pinot noir from the Cape one of the finest New World reds I have ever tasted. For a total cost of £52.50 this was a memorable evening.
Harare's other top eating place, Victoria Twenty-Two, is similar in style. In the sub- urb of Newlands, it is a pretty villa in spa- cious gardens, its ground floor simply yet elegantly converted into a restaurant. It is owned by a German, Mark, and his beauti- ful blonde Italian wife Manuela, helped by a feisty lady from Kenya. They have been open for seven mouths and are doing well, with a four-course set meal with coffee and digestif for $300, plus wine. Manuela cooks the first two courses and desserts, and Mark the main courses. I went there with Jacqui, my hostess in Zimbabwe, who had not been there before and was enchanted.
We began with a wonderful and copious mixed antipasto containing excellent seafood salad, deep-fried vegetables, fritta- ta, plus Parma ham and salami and top quality olive oil. Then came two superb home-made pasta dihes: ravioli filled with prawn mousse, with a spicy tomato and piri piri sauce, and small, beautifully light gnoc- chi, in an exquisite blue cheese sauce. There were three main courses and Manuela assured us we could have all three if we felt hungry, but we stuck to one each. This left the sole gratinata untasted, and Jacqui chose three quails quick-fried in olive oil, then poached in sparkling wine with rosemary, thyme and garlic. I had pork fillet in a cream and green peppercorn sauce. While pleasant, neither dish was quite on the level of the first two courses, with Mark revealing a tendency to over- cook meat. Jacqui ended with a delicious chocolate and mint ice cream, and I had as authentic-tasting a tiramisu as one could wish for. With a good South African red Frederiksburg, our bill came to a very rea- sonable $850 (£48) for an excellent dinner in highly attractive surroundings.
Again accompanied by diplomatic French Frangoise, I went to downtown Harare for a taste of the wild at Ramambo Lodge on the corner of Samora Machel Avenue and Takawira Street. The large room is decorat- ed very ethnically; there is a gallery selling artefacts on one side, and African drum- mers — some nights dancers too — on stage. The menu offers goodies from the bush, and I began, perhaps inevitably, with crocodile tail served with garlic butter. The meat was tough and tasted rather like swordfish, the sauce looked like custard and tasted of cheese. I followed this with a mixed grill of game, consisting of small steaks of ostrich, wildebeest, zebra and impala. The ostrich was sweetish and inter- esting, the wildebeest extremely tough, the zebra reminded me of the horse my landla- dy used to serve when I was a student in Paris, and the impala was delicious, like the finest venison. Frangoise, having eaten au savage before, stuck to deep-fried mush- rooms and braised guinea fowl, neither of which was especially exciting. With South African Hippo Creek cabernet sauvignon and Irish coffee for Francoise, the bill came to a modest $514 (£29) for a meal I would not rush to repeat.
For more satisfying exotic food you will do better at the Dehli Palace Indian restaurant in Greystone Park, where Nick- ie and Bob Savania grind their own spices, make their own chutneys, and produce some of the most authentically flavoured Indian cooking that I have eaten outside the subcontinent. Their prices are amaz- ingly cheap: allow about $150 (£8.50) a head.
Imba Matombo: 3 Albert Glen Close, Glen Lorne, Harare; tel: (2634) 499013/4.
Victoria Twenty-Two: 22 Victoria Drive, Newlands, Harare; tel: (2634) 776429. Ramambo Lodge: Corner Samora Machel AvenuelLeopold Takawira Street, Harare; tel: (2634) 792029.
Dehli Palace: Greystone Park Shopping Cen- tre, Harare; tel: (2634) 883178.
He was never over-lavish at entertaining clients.'
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