Life Grande Café

PHOTOS: Dook | PRODUCTION: Annemarie Meintjes | WORDS: Nia Magoulianiti-McGregor

Maira Koutsoudakis took the fine tradition of old Stephanie’s, added her unique brand of glamour and created Hyde Park’s new Life Grande Café.

Passion, pleasure, paradoxes and philanthropy don’t usually blend all that well. But throw owner of Life Interiors + Architecture + Creative Direction, Maira Koutsoudakis into this eclectic mix and you’ve probably entered the new Life Grande Café in Hyde Park, an eatery and retail space where sophistication rubs up against a lot of soul.

Formerly iconic Stephanie’s, where air-kissing was the order of the day, it’s now a deeply personal showcase for Maira’s influences, tastes and maturing mindset.

“The older I get, the more I believe in character, in the multilayered. I wanted to create a place of paradoxes. The decor, the food, the retail offerings and the design elements are all about contradiction and juxtaposition. It’s about combining earthy with a strong glam factor; industrial elements with luxury.”

She says it’s a space where the “monumentality of marble” lives with the warmth of a wood-burning oven, where home comforts collide with celebration and where the classic embraces the organic. “It reflects the type of food I like to eat with my friends, the handmade objets I like to buy and see around me. It’s also about revelling in living with contradictions.”

The contradiction metaphor works, too, in Life Grande Café’s hours. It will be open both day and night.

The food concept is Mediterranean with a strong English influence. “It’s fresh, local ingredients with presentation as an intrinsic element,” explains Maira. Emphasis will be on line fish, tapas, fast and slow-cooked food and desserts like banana split or jelly and custard to bring back a touch of whimsy. “Our desserts have an irreverent, messy component. They’re all about pleasure.”

Global lifestyle reflected

Maira says Life Grande Café reflects a global lifestyle. It’s a culmination of both her and her team’s experiences in resorts in the Seychelles, the Okavango Delta and in Europe “and bringing that to our new store”.

Décor is eclectic. Ash-coloured timber clads part of the walls. Floors combine stone marble with thin brass stripes – “I’m a Jozi girl, I want the warmth and glitter of gold.”

By “happy accident” the ceilings are the polar opposite. Workmen removing the old ceiling found exposed concrete: “It’s beautifully rustic with a wonderful treacly colour. I couldn’t cover that!” says Maira. How could she? She loves the “tension between high polish and the raw and unadorned”.

The emporium in Life Grande Café, personally curated by Maira, glitters stylishly on used bullets laid into the floor. Maria’s husband John, also her business partner, was sent to collect these from rifle ranges around Johannesburg. “I enjoy adding value to discarded waste – reusing and reinterpreting.”

The shelves are made from reclaimed wood. It’s here she sells unique, handmade products in a kind of gallery “souk”. From huge, monolithic pieces, such as a wooden chair, to lifestyle and art books, from candles to wraps, jewellery and sandals, artifacts “pay homage to heritage as well as contemporary aesthetics.” 

Supporting home-grown events

Maira plans to support the best of homegrown with themed events and exhibitions, and hopes the café will be an evolving urban space over which the community will come to feel some ownership.

She and her team have also adopted sustainability as an ethos. “We have a good waste philosophy and use organic wherever possible,” she explains.

It’s with sustainability in mind that Maira has modelled a philosophy of giving back on that of one of her favourite stores. Merci in Paris gives a percentage of its profits to charity and, in a similar move, Maira has promised a percentage of the retail emporium’s profits to three charities, including the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.

“Pleasurable philanthropy” is how she puts it. “Its about how I want to interpret life now as a mother, wife, a retailer and designer. For me, this is about making peace with crossing categories.

“I was in a lift recently with a set of plans in one hand and baking trays in the other. A businessman said to me, ‘Those things don’t go together.’ “I said, ‘But they do’.” And they do.

• Life Grande Café: 011 325 4350 or 011 325 5371