The South African who has a Michelin-starred restaurant in France

Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen went from working as a caterer in Johannesburg to opening one of the most popular restaurants in Nice, France, which has received a Michelin star every year for the past decade.

Born in 1982, Jan Hendrik grew up on his parents’ farm in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, where he took an interest in baking and cooking from an early age.

According to an interview with Oppenheimer Generations, he did this to avoid having to do farm work, such as driving the tractor.

He recalls that by the age of nine, he had opened his first restaurant in the woods on his family’s farm, with his father, mother, and sister as his first guests, who didn’t enjoy the food and refused to pay.

“I was a busy boy. Always doing things creatively around the farm. I baked a lot to avoid being on the tractor and sold the biscuits at school,” he said.

“I then started making flower vases from old exhaust pipes and realised that I loved art.”

At the age of 14, Jan Hendrik started a food society at school called the Green Peppers, comprising a small group of students who shared his curiosity about the culinary world.

His passion for food would soon lead him to start earning money from it when he began working for a catering company in Johannesburg on weekends and holidays.

He worked at over 200 functions in the space of two years, creating dishes ranging from jaffles to fine dining served in Sandton boardrooms.

“Working with my cousins in Johannesburg during school holidays in a catering company earned me my hours of slicing and chopping for years,” he said.

“But I wanted to make more than just a bowl of food. I wanted to combine art and ingredients.”

Following this success, Van der Westhuizen decided to pursue a Higher Professional Diploma in Cookery and Pastry from a programme associated with the British City and Guilds Institute in Stellenbosch.

After completing the course and working at various restaurants and hotels around Cape Town, he established a creative and photography studio called the Jan Hendrik Group.

This led him to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Photography, which enabled him to secure a photography internship with Elle magazine, a Paris-based publication.

The internship not only allowed Van der Westhuizen to explore recipe development and food styling but also enabled him to move to France.

Once he had his foot in the door, Jan Hendrik relocated to Monaco and worked as a private chef on a yacht.

The change in scenery also allowed him to focus on writing, photographing, and styling his first cookbook, titled The French Affair, which became a bestseller and a winner at the International Gourmand Book Awards.

Restaurant JAN

Keeping his personal brand alive, the Jan Hendrik Group was rebranded to JAN, which launched a lifestyle newsletter in 2012, featuring his mother’s chocolate mousse as its first recipe.

The newsletter’s first edition was sent out to 5,500 subscribers.

Van der Westhuizen then returned to France, where he renovated an old garage on Rue Lascaris in Nice and opened Restaurant JAN in 2013.

The establishment began with two front-of-house staff members and two chefs and soon attracted the attention of renowned critics, with The New York Times hailing Restaurant JAN as “a must-visit restaurant on the French Riviera.”

Within three years, it had earned its first Michelin star — a rating awarded by the Michelin Guide to restaurants for exceptional cooking.

The Michelin Guide was initially a tool used by brothers Édouard and André Michelin to market their tyre business by providing maps, hotels, petrol stations, and mechanics for French motorists.

It was thought that this would encourage motorists to drive more. Within a few years, the guide was expanded to include several other countries and began to feature restaurants.

After the brothers realised the popularity of the restaurant section, they began recruiting anonymous inspectors to visit and review these establishments.

Ten consecutive years

In 2018, Van der Westhuizen launched a creative culinary studio in Cape Town called the JAN Innovation Studio, which houses the most extensive cookbook collection in the country.

“We currently have over a thousand books, which is really a huge inspiration for the students and guests visiting the Studio. Some are handwritten and others are passed on from families,” he said.

In the years to come, Van der Westhuizen went on to launch his own TV show, JAN, in 2019 and opened his first restaurant on home soil, Klein JAN, in the Kalahari.

That same year, he also launched the JAN Innovation Academy, which is an online platform for self-enrichment.

In his words, it is “a growing collection of conversations about the things that matter most to me and my teams across the globe, presented as video interviews with industry experts and a look behind the scenes at JAN in South Africa and abroad.”

Meanwhile, Restaurant JAN continued to earn awards for its dining excellence, including being ranked the second-best restaurant in Nice by Time Out.

In 2024, Van der Westhuizen opened Le Bistrot de JAN, located next to Restaurant JAN, which is described as “blending the tradition of a bistro with a playful and accessible approach.”

The following year marked the tenth consecutive year that Restaurant JAN had received a Michelin star. Klein JAN was also awarded three Luxe Stars at the Luxe Restaurant Awards.

While Van der Westhuizen has said that France is his home, he will be opening his second restaurant in South Africa in December 2025.

Le Bistrot de JAN Cape Town is set to open at the InterContinental Table Bay Cape Town hotel.

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