Obituary: Brian Shalkoff: Celebrated chef of Gramadoelas

1948-2013: Brian Shalkoff, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 65, must have been the only person ever to suggest to Her Majesty the Queen of England that she might like to try a mopani worm dipped in his famous peri peri.

Nobody now remembers whether she dared to live dangerously that night in 1995, but Hillary Clinton loved them.

They were among the exotic dishes cooked by Shalkoff for the heads of state, presidents - including Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton - rock stars and Hollywood stars who dined at Johannesburg's legendary Gramadoelas restaurant, which Shalkoff ran with his partner, Eduan Naude, for almost 46 years.

Shalkoff was born in Witbank on March 12 1948. He met Naude in 1967, a year after the latter had started Gramadoelas.

Shalkoff, who had been a cook in the army during his national service, was working at an omelette bar in Hillbrow called The Eggbeat when Naude came in and said he needed someone to install a sound system in his restaurant. Shalkoff thought he could help him and they never looked back.

Naude, who was more of an entrepreneur than a cook, got Shalkoff interested in food and extended his range from standard army fare.

Their obsession was to run a restaurant where no one would be turned away on account of religion, culture or skin colour. In the days of strictly enforced apartheid, this was brave - if not foolhardy. They were told they had to get permission if they wanted to serve people of colour and given a phone number to call in Pretoria if a black person walked in wanting a meal.

When asked the inevitable question by roving policemen - "Did you get a permit?" - they would explain that the Pretoria number had gone unanswered or was engaged, but they would keep trying.

Then some South African diplomats who were friends said they wanted to hold a party for a group of people from the US South Africa Leadership Exchange Programme. The problem, they said, was that 12 members of the US delegation were black.

No problem at all, said Shalkoff, they would get permission. Needless to say, their call went unanswered and the black delegates mixed famously with the all-white South African diplomatic corps. After that the restaurateurs threw the Pretoria number away and never had any trouble.

Situated at first in a boarding house in Hillbrow, the only way they could run an establishment serving food without breaking bylaws was to call themselves a "dining room" and pretend that their patrons were boarders.

They became so successful that their landlord demanded a cut of the profits in return for renewing the lease. Not prepared to do this, they purchased premises in nearby Joubert Park. After 10 years the neighbourhood became a bit rough, and they moved to their present location next to the Market Theatre in Newtown.

Their friend Mary Slack, Harry Oppenheimer's daughter, was running the Market at the time and told them that the owners of Harridans restaurant were not doing too well and wanted to move on.

She encouraged them to lease the premises, and Gramadoelas opened its doors there in 1992, becoming famous for its traditional Cape dishes, unique ambience and, eventually, Shalkoff himself.

For the last 10 years he ran it pretty much alone, keeping a close eye on things from his table in the corner that served as his office. An enthusiastic raconteur, he would sally forth to entertain patrons with stories about the more exotic dishes.

The mopani worms were a curiosity, but bobotie was the most famous dish, followed by Mulligatawny soup. Shalkoff told patrons that the British adopted it as their own, but that he and Naude discovered it while dining at a restaurant in Mumbai - it was actually a native Indian soup often served to break the Ramadan fast.

Shalkoff's recipes were so popular that, in the 1990s, television producer Frans Marx produced a book of them.

The name of their restaurant came from Naude. When he was young, his Afrikaans parents had English-speaking friends whose favourite, if not only, Afrikaans word was "gramadoelas".

Years later, one of their most regular patrons and a good friend, the great paleoanthropologist Professor Phillip Tobias, explained that it meant "back of beyond".

Shalkoff died after being attacked with Naude, 81, when they returned from the restaurant to their home in Hillbrow.

Gramadoelas had reached the end of the road by then, anyway. The Market Theatre said after Shalkoff's death that it was "part of the family and fabric of the Market Theatre". Naude said they had been informed that their lease, which expires at the end of July, would not be renewed.