JOZI’S CRAZY NEW ITALIAN

SAINT, David Higgs and Gary Kyriacou’s new Sandton restaurant, is Italian food’s Alice in Wonderland moment: a broken-down puzzle of traditional ingredients, reassembled with quirky, curious twists, served under a digital “fresco” projected on the vaulted ceilings and alongside a three-dimensional mural of a deconstructed Renaissance colossus. It’s pure Sandton, and it’s rather genius – the flash-casual younger brother of its upmarket big-sister restaurant, Marble. Where Marble is calm, quiet, and intimate, Saint is in your face, noticeably more fast-paced, taking its cue from the surrounding financial district. Together the bar and restaurant stretch over 1 000 m and seat up to 230 guests. David and Gary call it pazzo Italiano. “Crazy” Italian. And there’s already a three-week waiting list for a table.

“We had the concept for Saint before we built Marble,” Gary