South Africa

Photographs: David Rosenzweig; (Axis Gallery) Collaboration3, Courtesy Mocada; (Amaridian) Tracy Payne

GRUB LIKE A SOUTH AFRICAN

“We try to put a little bit of everybody on our menu—Indian, Dutch, English, Zulu,” says Mark Henegan, a Durban native and co-owner of Madiba Restaurant (195 DeKalb Ave between Adelphi St and Carlton Ave, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; 718-855-9190). Sample steak ($24) from the braai (backyard barbecue) with a side of thickly cut slap-chip fries ($6), a staple of the South African surfer diet. Henegan also recommends the bunny chow ($14–$20), half a loaf of crusty white bread hollowed out and filled with veggie, chicken, lamb or seafood curry. Through Sunday 26, Madiba is offering a tenth-anniversary drink special: South African cane rum punch is two for $10. Feeling ambitious? Whip up your own dish after buying jams, spices, chutneys and sweets at the adjacent Madiba Spaza Shop, which also carries South African–made clothing, crafts and toys.

Raise a glass at Xai Xai (365 W 51st St between Eighth and Ninth Aves, 212-541-9241), the only South African wine bar in New York. This classy, low-lit watering hole carries more than 100 wines, and helped popularize pinotage ($8–$15), a grape that once got a bad rap. Says co-owner Tanya Hira: “Now people come from all over to try it.” Xai Xai is also a prime date spot. “Table No. 5 is make-out central,” says co-owner Brett Curtin. “I don’t know if it’s a cosmic vortex of love or something, but every couple that sits there ends up tongue-wrestling.”

You’ll find South Africans sipping fresh strawberry balsamic martinis ($10) at the casual Shebeen (202 Mott St between Kenmare and Spring Sts, 212-625-1105), named after makeshift township speakeasies. According to co-owner Dalya Tugendhaft, these drinking dens were “places where blacks and whites could mix, and antiapartheid activists could meet.” This modern-day manifestation draws a similarly eclectic crowd; its no-frills atmosphere feels distinctly shebeenlike, with South African signifiers—like a radio made out of wire and Coke cans—among the decor. “You wouldn’t necessarily know that this is a South African bar,” says Tugendhaft, “but South Africans who walk in instantly understand the references and what we’re about.”

SEE SOUTH AFRICAN ART

Stroll through “Johannesburg to New York,” a collaborative exhibit of mixed-media images by South African native Samson Mnisi and New Yorker Cannon Hersey, currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (80 Hanson Pl at South Portland Ave, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; 718-230-0492; $4, students $3, children under 12 free). According to curator Kimberli E. Gant, the MoCADA exhibit “gives the audience the viewpoint of a person who has lived in South Africa his whole life, as well as a Western perspective.”

Johannesburg-born Fraser Conlon, one of the founders of Amaridian (31 Howard St between Broadway and Crosby St, 917-463-3719), describes his space as a “combination retail store and gallery,” which focuses on contemporary art from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mali, Zambia and Senegal. “We want to give continental Africans a platform to expose their work,” says Conlon. Pieces range from Heath Nash’s austere Bottleball mobile, made out of recycled bleach bottles, toTracy Payne’s Praying for Rain, a kaleidoscopic oil painting of flowers.

Get the full South African art-history experience by making an appointment to tour Axis Gallery (50–52 Dobbin St between Nassau and Norman Aves, Greenpoint, Brooklyn; 212-741-2582). “South African traditional art is very performance-based,” says curator Gary van Wyk. “We see [our] beadwork costumes as a way of making spiritual contact with ancestors.”

PARTY LIKE A SOUTH AFRICAN

“We hold some of the best parties in the city,” says Sduduzo Ka-Mbili, director and choreographer of South African dance group Juxtapower (juxtapower.org). Join the fun after taking one of Ka-Mbili’s free classes at the Harlem YMCA (181 W 135th St between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd [Seventh Ave] and Malcolm X Blvd [Lenox Ave]; 212-283-8570, ymca.net; May 15, 16 at 4pm), where you can learn the gumboot (a stepping-style dance performed in Wellington boots), the Zulu and the hip-hop-esque pantsula.

On May 2—the day Nelson Mandela claimed victory—MoCADA and the Museum of African Art will present the South African Freedom Day Festival (Cuyler Gore Park, Hanson Pl at Fulton St, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; 718-230-0492, mocada.org; festival noon–6pm; postfestival reception at MoCADA 7–9pm; free), a family-friendly affair with live music and dance, art vendors, food from Madiba, a wine reception and a film screening of Come Back, Africa (1959). “We’re celebrating South Africa’s first freely elected black president, as well as the United States’ first African-American President,” says MoCADA’s Gant. Another excuse to toast Obama? We’ll take it.

Fun facts

• South Africa has 11 official languages. Learn Zulu from a private tutor at CP Language Institute (1790 Broadway at 58th St, 917-519-9803); 15 sessions costs $1,200.

• Nelson Mandela is often referred to as “Madiba,” his clan name—and the moniker adopted by the Fort Greene restaurant.

• Howzit, an expression that originated as surfer slang, is a typical South African greeting for “how’s it going,” or “hello.”

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