The Larder Café was born 4 years ago when Sonja returned from almost 20 years in London. Block & Chisel, the home of beautiful furniture invited her to open an artisan café in their flagship store.

The Grove branch opened in 2011 in the old Marigold's site, offering a much needed foodie hidden gem to the busy Claremont CBD, outside of the Mall. The Claremont Larder Café has launched a delicious initiative that should be good news for anyone looking for easy, comforting and delicious weeknight suppers. Join The Larder Café Supper Club and book your place for a roast chicken supper every Monday night. For only R150 pp punters can expect a main course of either a juicy free range bird, duck fat potatoes and two sides plus a bottle of house wine* Plus there is the option to upsize by ordering any of the additional sides, starters or desserts including items like roast tomato soup with toasted sage and chilli oil or sweet potato falafel, sautéed spinach, roast garlic and red peppers, salted caramel and dark chocolate tart or a banting friendly toasted superfood banana loaf made with chia seeds & coconut with yoghurt and raspberries.

Sonja Edridge, business owner & founder

Although, not a restaurateur in the concrete jungle, she earned her chef “stripes” at Prue Leith’s London school of Food & Wine, along with the coveted Moët & Chandon Student of the Year award. The prize included a by invitation only weekend at the Chateau in Epernay. After a summer cooking job for one of Prue’s friends in Tuscany at Castello di Montepò for Italian nobility, foodie elites and Vatican folk, she fell into tv, working on live cooking shows & the acclaimed River Café’s Channel 4’s Light Lunch and The Italian Kitchen, with Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers.

After 2 years converting Delia Smith book collection onto the web Sonja gravitated into mainstream publishing as a food editor, writer & food stylist for supermarket magazines such as Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer. Then a decade of freelance food styling, writing & recipe developing for multiple publications, as well as cookbooks, tv commercials & packaging shoots, making all the London chef’s recipes look ruddy amazing in print. Shooting with incredible food photographers, authors and stylists on the London food scene, some of her fav’s David Loftus, Jamie Oliver’s no 1, Jonathan Lovekin, Nigel Slater’s partner in crime.

As if all of that wasn’t enough fun, Sonja occasionally did private chef contracts for Johnny Depp and his entourage. Or ask her how she managed to stop Dustin Hoffman (or Rainman as Sonja called him for the first few hours) from eating straight out of the frying pan before dinner! So many stories to tell..