Humble beginnings
What if the simple task of braaing fish turned out to be a life-changing event?

This was the case for a fresh-out-of-school Steven Kruger when two of his hungry customers at a KwaZulu-Natal South Coast caravan park turned out to be none other than Lynton Hall’s previous award-winning chef, Richard Carstens, and the general manager, Germaine Lehody – one of the top sommeliers in the world.

Coincidently, Richard and Germaine were scouting for a protégé when they spotted Steven in the braai haze. “Here was this young guy who really cared about his cooking,” recalls Germaine. “It was just a fish braai, but he made the most of it.”

Signs of greatness
Soon after the young Steven was snapped up, signs of greatness already came to the surface. “He was fascinated by what I was doing,” says Richard, well known for his adventurous approach to food. “He was so eager to learn and experiment – as soon as he had a foundation of my cuisine he was branching off with his own ideas.”

When Richard eventually left for Manolo in Cape Town, Steven fearlessly stepped into his head chef-shoes. Although he’s only 22, he fills them well, as was evident on a recent visit when we were presented with a five course degustation menu that would certainly puff Richard’s chest.

Chocolate masterpiece
The dessert – an assiette of chocolate with raspberry sorbet – stood out as a masterpiece. Layered chocolate sponge and ice cream was sectioned and sculpted on a bed of white and dark chocolate shards, topped with intense sorbet of berries and caramel wafers embedded with ruby-like crystals of dried raspberry. The accompanying warm miniature doughnut seemed incongruous until we made the delightful discovery that its centre was molten chocolate. The delicate balance of textures, flavours and temperatures, was perfect.

Tough location, pioneering destination
Being head chef at a country hotel away from the city and its suppliers, has its challenges. “We’re at the coast but battle to get fresh fish,” complains Steven, “they’re catching less these days.”

Luckily there are some pleasant surprises. “My local butcher arrived with wild boar the other day,” he says with a boyish grin. Also, it’s a sparsely populated area so Steven, like Richard, quickly learnt the menu had to marry cutting edge with classic cuisine to satisfy local tastes while keeping up Lynton Hall’s reputation as a pioneering foodie destination.

Reconstructing gastronomy
Steven is not exactly classically trained. Matric in Rustenburg was followed by waiting at a hamburger franchise before graduating to “head of braai tongs” at the caravan park. A correspondence course was the closest he came to serious training.

He majored in pastry and likes to experiment with texture, transferring ideas from desserts to savouries. Like liquid beef. “It’s a rissole which has ground beef suspended in a jus, encapsulated in a flash-fried ground beef casing,” he explains.

Describing his cooking as “reconstruction” – an evolution of molecular gastronomy which was made famous by Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Spain, and Richard in South Africa – Steven is clearly inspired by his contemporaries, and his conversation is decorated with the names of pioneering Michelin-starred chefs.

Like the self-trained Michel Bras whose food he describes as “architectural, harmonious and precise”, and Oriol Balaguer, who was voted best pastry chef in Spain at the age of 21 and went on to head the El Bulli Dessert team.

A rising star
As his own assiette of chocolate attests, Steven’s star keeps on ascending and it makes Lynton Hall worth a special trip (like the Michelin guide would say of top destinations).

He still communicates with Richard on a daily basis, confidently offering his fair share of ideas to one of the wizards of the industry. It’s a gastronomic leap for someone who was discovered at a fish braai only four years ago.

Ian and Athena Robinson