MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Arbour Café & Courtyard and the French Embassy Present a Cullinary Experience on Thursday 21 October

MyPR: Arbour Café & Courtyard and the French Embassy Present a Cullinary Experience on Thursday 21 October:

Arbour Café & Courtyard and the French Embassy Photo: Arbour Cafe

Arbour Café & Courtyard is excited to be participating in the sixth edition of the Good France/Goût de France initiative taking place this week that aims to celebrate the best of French cuisine in South Africa. The concept was born in 2010, when the French gastronomic meal and its rituals were recognised as an intangible UNESCO cultural heritage. This prompted the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the multi-starred chef Alain Ducasse to launch the label Good France for the best French inspired restaurants across the globe to be part of the celebration.

Arbour Café has been chosen by the French Embassy to take part in this exceptional culinary event; which runs until Friday 22 October 2021.

“We are very excited to have been invited by the French Embassy to participate” says co-owner Larry Hodes. “After all, we are a French inspired café, and we embrace any opportunity to delight our customers and their palates. This year is the 6th edition and will focus on the strong resilience of the restaurant industry in the context of the pandemic which is something we are navigating ourselves”

Co-owner and Chef Joshua Simon has designed a delicious 4 course French inspired meal. Please join us for a special dinner on October 21 and stand a chance to win a return trip to Paris. Come and relax in our beautiful courtyard, under the fairy lights and enjoy an exquisite 4 course meal, with bubbly as a welcome drink for R395 per person.

For bookings please email info@arbourcafe.co.za or call 010 753 2007.

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Have you tried: Visiting Port Elizabeth?

Did you know this about Johannesburg? Johannesburg’s traffic is brutal: According to figures released earlier in 2018, the city is the 2nd most congested city in South Africa (behind Cape Town). It’s the 44th most congested city globally. Johannesburg residents spent an average of 46 hours in peak traffic in 2017. The city has more than 7500 km of roads.

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Ponte City: Transformation

As the “white flight” of the 1980s and 90s drained the inner city of capital, Ponte City underwent a dramatic and terrifying transformation. By the late 1990s, the building had become a “vertical slum” and a symbol of urban decay. It was famously “hijacked” by gangs; the retail levels were stripped, and the building became a fortress for drug dealing and human trafficking. The most haunting image from this era was the central core. Originally designed to be a light-filled courtyard, it became a literal trash heap. Residents on the upper floors would throw their refuse into the center of the building rather than taking it down. At its worst point, the trash in the core reached five stories high—a mountain of rotting debris, discarded furniture, and even, legend has it, the remains of those who had fallen or jumped.

During this period, the reputation of Ponte was so toxic that there was a serious proposal in 1998 to turn the entire skyscraper into a vertical prison. The plan was eventually scrapped, but the building remained a “no-go zone” for nearly a decade. The turnaround began in the mid-2000s when developers New Metro Property Group and later Dlala Nje began a massive, painstaking refurbishment. They cleared out the tons of trash from the core, restored the lifts (which had often been out of order, forcing residents to climb 50 flights of stairs), and implemented strict security protocols.