In Perfect Harmony

French writer Marcel Proust wrote of the “exquisite pleasure” derived from the taste of a madeleine. Never has a restaurant been more aptly named then than Pretoria’s La Madeleine, where father-and-daughter team, Daniel and Anne Leusch, ensure exquisite pleasure is always the order of the day…

- Anna Trapido

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

“My parents started La Madeleine before I was born and so much of what I know and who I am is because I grew up in and around this business. I have worked all over the world but many of my core skills were learned, almost by osmosis, by watching my parents in the kitchen. My mother is retired now but my dad and I continue that tradition every day,” Anne explains.

GETTING HER FEET WET

“Some of my food knowledge was acquired in slightly unconventional ways. When I was about 6 years old, we went as a family to Dullstroom. The adults were fishing but I caught a frog. My dad said, ‘Oh, my baby, you should cook it’, so he showed me how to skin it and we pan-fried it in garlic butter,” Anne recalls. Daniel remembers “teaching Anne how to skin a rabbit on the washing line when she was 8 years old”.

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS…