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His menu celebrates KwaZulu-Natal’s flavours with a mix of French finesse and Asian flair.
Inspired early by his mother’s food adventures across Africa, Richter developed a deep respect for local produce and diverse cuisines. In 2010, midway through a stats degree, he swapped numbers for knives, training in Germany’s Black Forest where he mastered French techniques and Michelin-starred Japanese cooking.
On 6 September, he joins acclaimed Chef Sebastian Stehr at the Eat Out Two-Star beyond Restaurant on Buitenverwachting Wine Estate In Constantia. Both chefs share a passion for spotlighting overlooked indigenous ingredients.
GQ caught up with Richter to talk about his culinary journey and this exciting collaboration.
GQ: What inspired the idea to collaborate and create a menu celebrating South Africa’s culinary diversity?
Johannes Richter: Seb and I met at the San Pellegrino Young Chef Awards at the end of last year, where we were both mentors— I was mentoring Luxon and he was mentoring Zante. We immediately connected, both conceptually and ideologically, and discovered a lot of common ground. And then said, you know what? We actually need to do a collaboration together.
GQ: How do your individual culinary backgrounds influence the dishes you plan to showcase for this event?
Johannes Richter: I think we’ve always been a bit critical of the fact that there’s been too little effort to bring South African elements into the fine dining scene as a whole. That’s always been the kind of agenda we, at The LivingRoom, have wanted to align with and drive forward. When Seb and I connected, we discovered many commonalities and realized we share the same vision for bringing South African identity into what we do, even though our backgrounds are different. From there, it just made sense to collaborate.
GQ: Can you share more about your approach to using indigenous ingredients and how they shape your cooking philosophy?
Johannes Richter: Our cooking is centered around two main pillars. The first is our geographical location, which naturally brings in indigenous ingredients as well as agricultural crops that grow here—some indigenous, some introduced by the various cultural groups in South Africa. The second is the nostalgia of growing up in Durban and drawing from all of these cultural influences. Our cooking comes from the way these two pillars meet in the middle.
GQ: How do you incorporate sustainability into your kitchens and menus, and why is it important to you both?
Johannes Richter: I think sustainability in this country is obviously a very difficult topic because we have so many socioeconomic challenges that still need to be addressed. But one feeds into the other in the sense that, if we want to find a solid solution going forward, we have to think more sustainably. If we don’t take the responsibilities and platforms we have and use them—even to make small changes—we’re not doing a very good job in the role we have in the industry. That’s something both of us feel passionate about, though we naturally express it in different ways.
GQ: How do the east and west coasts of South Africa differ in terms of the produce and flavors you’re highlighting in the seven-course menu?
Johannes Richter: It’s really a matter of subtropics in KZN versus fynbos in the Cape.
GQ: Can you describe one or two signature dishes you’ll be presenting during the collaboration and what makes them unique?
Johannes Richter: When cooking hyper-locally and seasonally, signature dishes aren’t really a feature on our menu because ingredients change all the time. Some years you have an amazing sweet potato season, other years there’s barely a harvest. Two dishes we’ll be bringing illustrate this approach.
The first centers around sweet potato, which we get in a variety of types—from Japanese to Malawian varieties—all grown on an organic farm in Howick. We’ve paired this with a young homemade miso paste inspired by South African Ingredients, as well as red-skinned peanuts from the same farm. It’s really a play on chevda, a local street food snack, combining crunchy, spicy, and nutty flavors that represent Durban and our geography very well.
The second dish is inspired by both the subtropics and the inland areas of KZN. It features guavadilla, a beautiful passion fruit with tropical notes, paired with napa cabbage turned into kimchi, and hard-body chicken.
GQ: How do you balance modern culinary techniques with traditional ingredients and methods in your cooking?
Johannes Richter: Because many of these ingredients have been largely forgotten and haven’t been used much in a more technical sense, our approach is really trial and error. We do a lot of testing and experimenting, but we also have to be very mindful of how we work with them, since these ingredients aren’t abundant and need to be treated as scarce commodities.
GQ: How has Heritage Month influenced your vision and menu for this collaborative dinner?
Johannes Richter: When we talked about this, it was actually more coincidental that it coincided with Heritage Month. Both of us feel that heritage should be celebrated every day, and doesn’t need a specific day or month to be acknowledged. But it does tie it up nicely!
GQ: What role do you think indigenous ingredients play in telling the story of South African food culture?
Johannes Richter: If I go to Italy or Rome, I want to have Cacio e Pepe, or if I go to the Andes, I want to taste Andean potatoes. Food carries so much storytelling and identity, and indigenous ingredients in particular can really showcase who we are as South Africans. That’s something that’s very important to me and also gives international travellers a sense of our culture and identity.
GQ: How important is community involvement and support for small-scale local farmers in your culinary practices?
Johannes Richter: To us, it’s non-negotiable. We rely heavily on our suppliers and have strong relationships with them, including farm visits at least once a month to ensure we’re on the same wavelength. Without the community behind us, even the most skilled chef wouldn’t be able to showcase what we do. That network is essential—without it, things would be very difficult.
GQ: How do you approach wine pairings for a menu that celebrates such diverse regional flavors and ingredients?
Johannes Richter: With our suppliers, we know the people behind the produce – our focus is working with smaller farmers with a similar ethos, to showcase the beautiful diversity of South African Wines. We try to look for wines you don’t find on every shelf, wines that you wouldn’t order a bottle of necessarily – exposing diners to different flavours, different soils, different varieties.
Then on the non-alcoholic pairing side, of course we are not limited to wine, opening up lots of opportunities for things like kombuchas, pickles, juices, teas, on vinegars – which we then use homemade techniques, diving into these beautiful, original flavours.
Issued on GQ South Africa by Anele Geqiwe | https://www.gq.co.za/culture/food-drink/meet-chef-johannes-richter-the-talent-behind-the-livingroom-at-summerhill-48c20561-def2-4baa-88c9-355c369388cc
