By Malu Lambert
Photography & Styling C&D Heierli

“Be careful,” says Margot Janse. She is standing over me worriedly. “Be careful not to cut yourself.”
I scrape a radish along a razor-sharp mandolin.
“Here, let me do it,” she says. She takes the radish from me; her hand becomes a blur against the mandolin. “Ouch,” Margot says and drops the radish. She’s cut herself. “See?” she says, “See what can happen?”

We’re in the kitchen of Margot’s Franschhoek home. Behind us are her husband Duncan Doherty—who runs restaurant Cotage Fromage—and their son Thomas, both busy setting up the pasta machine.

Homey and real, Margot’s home exudes warmth and yummy smells. It’s also child friendly. The wall in the entrance hall is painted with a magnetic, black metal paint and it’s strewn with colourful, lopsided letters.
Margot is the Executive Chef at Le Quartier Français, a restaurant that was recently rated 38 in the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Not bad, considering Margot has had no formal chef training.

Margot’s culinary quest began way before she could wield a spatula. It began in the city of Maastricht, in the Netherlands, when she was a starry-eyed drama student. Everything changed, though, when the theatre school she attended told her she should see the world.



In the meantime, Margot and her ANC activist boyfriend who had fled to the Netherlands during the apartheid days, left the Netherlands for Zimbabwe.

Then came a new era. Apartheid had crumbled while Margot had spent the last few years taking pictures of political strife in Zimbabwe and selling them to overseas dailies. The couple decided to settle in South Africa. And, just as happens with any true calling, Margot found herself drawn to the culinary world. A passion for home cooking had developed into a real ambition.
Margot applied to a few restaurants. Ciros, an Italian eatery in Johannesburg, gave her the chance she was looking for. She started at the very bottom. “Cleaning a lot of squid,” she says.

Fast-forward to 1994, the couple moved to Cape Town. Margot found work in the glamorous kitchen of the Bay Hotel. Soon, however, she felt she needed a change. After a year and a half of cooking for the Camps Bay elite, she moved to Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek.

Things were not easy in the beginning. The owners of Le Quartier Français, Susan and John Huxter, were having marital problems. Susan was running the hotel, while John was the head chef. When John left, Susan asked Margot to replace him as head chef. That’s where she’s been ever since.
Margot’s culinary talent makes men go weak at the knees. Literally. A man once went down on his knees and proposed to her after eating at Le Quartier Français.

She did a three-day stint in 2000 at The French Laundry in the Napa Valley, which she says was a real learning curve for her. “The head chef asked me for the Pasta Crab,” she says. “I was confused. I asked him to repeat what he said. ‘The Pasta Crab’, he said, and pointed to a cupboard. Well, I thought, I would recognise it, whatever it was, when I got there. Another chef was standing in front of the cupboard. He asked me what I was looking for. The first chef shouted across the kitchen, in a drawn out American accent: ‘The plaaastic wraaap.’ Oh, it was so embarrassing.”

Today is one of those rare sunny Cape winter days and the doors of Margot’s home are wide open. The house is filled with people. Margot’s brother and his wife are visiting from Amsterdam. The whole lot of them are tall and fair. I spot a Great Dane, named Luca, loping around with a distinctly mournful expression, no doubt trying to sniff out scraps. Margot’s other dog, Chocolate, is lying in a sunbeam. “She’s a mixed breed,” says Margot, stroking her lovingly. “A rescue dog.”

While I take over the mandolin again, Duncan and Thomas pull dough through the pasta machine; they’re making egg yolk ravioli. This is quite the feat as Thomas is only four years old. But, then again, he’s not your usual kid. Growing up with two superstar chefs as parents, Thomas has developed a taste for the gourmet; he’s a self-confessed fan of Gorgonzola.
Not surprising when you consider Margot was also an adventurous eater as a child. “I was always curious about new things,” she says. “My brother and I once ate calf brains poached with tomatoes. It wasn’t that bad, as far as I can remember.”
Margot’s brother pipes up. “I remember the brains,” he says, “they weren’t so bad.”
“I went to school the next day,” Margot carries on, “and told the other kids I was smarter than them—I had eaten brains last night.”



The pan is hot and smoking. Margot goes about searing the sides of a Franschhoek salmon trout, leaving the inside nice and rare. She then places the caramelised pink slabs on top of an emerald green potato salad.

Soon, we’re all sitting at a low wooden table adjacent to the kitchen. I see a long garland strung along the back porch. On closer inspection I find it’s comprised of netted champagne corks. “We’ve been collecting them since the day we met, around thirteen years ago,” says Margot, as we break bread. And what fantastic bread it is.

“Oh, yes, Duncan Doodles baked the bread,” she says, teasing her husband. A smorgasbord of goodies is on the table. Golden yolk oozes out of ravioli pockets onto green asparagus. At centre table is the salad I helped make, a delicate arrangement of chicory, radish, pomegranate and celeriac root.

Little Thomas is sitting to my left. He’s wearing a bright blue cricket helmet. A chorus of clinks and cheers goes around the table as we toast with bubbly. Not to be left out, Thomas has also got a champagne glass, but filled with apple juice.
Margot’s brother is bright and engaging and the stories about Amsterdam come thick and fast. “We have a saying in Amsterdam,” he is telling me, “make as if your nose is bleeding.” Apparently this saying means I must just ignore it (whatever it is).

The Dutch people around the table wave their hands by their ears. Laughing, Margot says, “It’s common in Holland to wave your hand by your ear to show you are enjoying the food, or that it’s delicious.

“People thought I was mad when I first started doing it in kitchens in South Africa,” she says.
Mad or not, the food is sublime. If you can’t beat them, join them. I wave my hand by my ear as lunch comes to an end and I tuck into what’s known as ‘Margot’s Legacy’, otherwise called a sticky bun. Margot gives me another one wrapped up for later, and I head home.

Try These Recipes

Chicory, Celeriac and Radish Salad
Egg Yolk Ravioli
Salmon & Herbed Potato Salad

Watch the video to see Margot making the Egg Yolk Ravioli, with Duncan and Thomas.