Primedia+ adds JAN Voyage: Italy with chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen from Brainwave Productions as its first original series

by Thinus Ferreira  

Primedia+ has added the travelogue series JAN Voyage: Italy from brainwave Productions and fronted by the South African Michelin star chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen as its first original production. 

The six half-hour episode series is available on Primedia+ on the website as well as on the Primedia+ app for free after registration.

In JAN Voyage: Italy, the South African Michelin star chef travels through various Italian regions by car and train with his four-year old dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, named Elizabeth, that he calls "Lizzie".

Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen showcases places ranging from Apricale and Florence to to Parma, Naples and Positano.

Primedia Studios commissioned JAN Voyage: Italy specifically for Primedia+. Brainwave Productions previously produced the series JAN as well as JAN RSVP for Media24's VIA (DStv 147) channel.

"In every encounter with the people behind the food, I find a story of passion, patience and devotion," says Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen.

"It reminds me that food is never just about what's on the plate - it's about the hands, the hearts, and the histories that bring it to life – from the butchers who still wrap their cuts in brown paper with pride to the corner shopkeepers who know every face in the village and the families who've run their cafés for generations, still stirring the same sauces their great-great-grandparents made."

"It reminds me that food is never just about what’s on the plate - it’s about the hands, the hearts, and the histories that bring it to life."

Jan du Plessis, Primedia Studios president, says "We are incredibly honoured to have joined forces with the multiple Safta-winning Brainwave Productions to showcase this stunning show on Primedia+."

"Jan Hendrik brings the Midas touch to everything he does, and JAN Voyage: Italy is a sure-fire recipe for binge-worthy viewing."

South Africa's Michelin-star chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen back for a fourth season of JAN on VIA cooking with guests and sharing old recipes.

by Thinus Ferreira

The Afrikaans lifestyle cooking show JAN on VIA (DStv 147) is returning for a fourth season from Sunday 16 October at 20:30 and will be titled "JAN RSVP" as the South African Michelin-star chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen hosts guests in a small farmhouse while they cook together, talk about life, and share old recipes, traditions and dishes that they remember. 

Produced by Carien Loubser's Brainwave Productions, season 4 of JAN as "JAN RSVP" will see Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen setting the table for guests in a renovated 1712 farmhouse in a lavender field.

For each of the guests, he prepares a dish inspired by their own stories as they come to share their food secrets and old family recipes. Guests during the season include Coenie de Villiers, Ina Paarman, chef Mokgadi Itsweng and Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout.

"We bonded the only way I know how – breaking bread together around beautifully set tables – talking about life, love and everything in between," says Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen about season 4.

Azelia Morkel, VIA channel head says "viewers will be swept away by every minute of this show" which was filmed in the Boland.

Dessert in the desert: Third season of JAN on VIA and Showmax will chronicle the creation of his Klein JAN Kalahari restaurant.

by Thinus Ferreira

The award-winning culinary travelogue series JAN is back for a third season from Thursday at 20:00 on both VIA (DStv 147) and Showmax with the new season that will chronicle the planning, drama, creation and opening night of the Michelin-star chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen's new Klein JAN restaurant in the Kalahari desert.

Produced by Brainwaves Productions and filmed mostly in Afrikaans and screened with English subtitles, viewers can get ready for an even more intimate season with the chef who this time traces the recent origin and evolution of an extraordinary idea - to open a restaurant and to serve dessert in a desert with a Khoisan-cuisine inspired menu.

The first two seasons of the beautifully filmed JAN took viewers to Italy and France and charted the chef's journey to Michelin stardom, while the third will take viewers on another breathtakingly beautiful journey to Tswalu Kalahari, the largest private game reserve in South Africa that is the setting for Klein JAN.

Through the course of 8 new episodes, Jan Hendrik takes viewers into his confidence about what a farm boy from Middelburg, whose whimsical fusion of South African cuisine with the finest French cooking has won favour with the world’s most exacting food critics on the French Riviera, dreams of in the enormous silence of the Kalahari desert.

Tswalu Kalahari is operated by the Oppenheimer family and Jan Hendrik's Klein JAN journey began several years ago when Jonathan and Nicky Oppenheimer enjoyed a meal at JAN, Jan-Hendrik's restaurant in Nice that has become the object of pilgrimage for South Africans traveling through the south of France.

This meeting leads to a 100-year old cottage in the proverbial middle of nowhere that would become the logistical and emotional crux of Jan Hendrik's new beginning.

"Beyond people's wildest expectations," is how project architect Adrian Davidson describes the project in the first episode of the third season, which introduces viewers to the reasons that prompted Jan Hendrik to set a table in the desert and his dream of putting the Kalahari on a pedestal where it could be admired by the whole world.

In the second episode, viewers are left in no doubt that Klein JAN was never going to be just another lodge restaurant.

A meeting with the Khoisan, one of the world’s most ancient living cultures, shapes the menu in

unexpected ways and viewers should be prepared for a tug at the heartstrings when Jan Hendrik's

grandmother's coal stove arrives on the farm.

The philosophy behind Klein JAN is to leave the lightest possible footprint while creating a world-class menu that showcases the best of local and indigenous produce – from 3-million-year-old salt

discovered in a salt pan in the middle of the desert, to the extraordinary cheeses made by a wine farmer in the Northern Cape and seen in episode four.

In the 6th episode, Jan Hendrik meets a female farmer as opening day is just a few weeks away, episode 7 captures the day before opening day, and episode 8 is there for the dramatic opening night of Klein JAN as guests are flown in from across South Africa.