IT'S MONDAY AND FOOD I LOVE YOU KITCHEN IS CLOSED TO CUSTOMERS, SO MPHO PHALANE IS HOSTING SOME of her favourite people for lunch. “Technicolor” by Sunni Colon plays softly through the Marshall speaker mingling with the chatter, laughter and gentle gurgle of wine being poured. Two long teak tables seat old friends, close associates and family. There is always a relative at the restaurant, and Mpho prefers it that way. “My family walks with me every step of this journey.” She points to an antique silver spoon in a framed glass case on a nearby shelf. “This is my grandmother's spoon, gifted to me by my mother when I opened this place. My grandmother taught me how to trust my sense of taste. This spoon is a symbol of our family's history with food.”
Mpho is what the food industry calls a rising star, but she rejects all labels. “I'm just like you, I love and revere food. I named my restaurant for how I feel.
“I was always pegged as the Lynn (from Girlfriends) of my friendship circle. The haphazard, creative one with all the quirks. It was my fate to be different. And now that things are beginning to take shape, I seem a little less crazy for leaving a job to pursue this food thing.”
Mpho left her job as an account manager at an advertising firm before working for CNBC Africa. Soon afterwards, she started a catering company and the word spread. The University of Johannesburg approached her to run an on-site restaurant in 2016. This would be Mpho's first commercial kitchen. “I was so intimidated by all the stainless steel and I had no idea how I was going to populate the kitchen with
