Six top chefs were selected to flex their culinary muscles in the Col'Cacchio Pizzeria Celebrity Chef Series — a gourmet charity project that aims to raise funds for the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. Dan Nicholl went along...

Alright, so it's not quite asking Tracey Emin to paint your garage for you, but it's not that far removed. Asking Margot Janse, the celebrated chef behind the gourmet extravaganza that is Le Quartier Français, to make you a pizza? On second thoughts, it's considerably more than asking Emin to haul out the Dulux…

But roping in Janse, and five more of South Africa's most celebrated chefs, to swap foams and reductions for the blue collar canvas that is the pizza base, is exactly what Michael Terespolsky, Greg Mommsen and Kinga Baranowska, the dynamic trio behind the ever expanding Col'Cacchio chain, have done.

'Stellar sextet of cooking's finest'

Along with a woman with an extraordinary penchant for creating the wondrously bizarre in her Franschhoek kitchen, fellow winelands artiste Ruben Riffel, Mike Basset of Shoga renown, Citrum Khumalo, Rudi Liebenberg and Philippe Wagenfuhrer, form a stellar sextet of cooking's finest, all busy making pizzas.

Or at least creating pizzas — the real work will still be done by Col'Cacchio's in house team, under Kinga's overall guidance.

The task for the celebrity chefs was to create a gourmet pizza as part of a charity drive. For six months, all six new creations will be available at Col'Cacchio, with R5 from every one sold going to the Red Cross Children's Fund, and the drive to build a new operating theatre.

Throw in a couple of sponsors, and a fair dose of generosity from Col'Cacchio and its franchisees, and a six figure sum should be headed the way of the hospital later this year.

That will depend, though, on just how many of the gourmet pizzas fly out the Col'Cacchio ovens across the country, and how the six big names handle slightly unfamiliar territory.

'It's nothing quite so Marie Antoinette...'

So what exactly have they come up with, then? Sautéed lobster on shitake mushrooms with champagne mist? Wagyu beef on Russian caviar with sliced eel? Seared salmon slices in a white truffle jus dressed with a whole baby quail?

Alas, it's nothing quite so Marie Antoinette, instead (and I've only tried three of them so far), it's eclectic, but pretty damn good — and you get an overwhelming sense that being released from Blumenthal's world and being unleashed onto Planet Margherita, has given the big name chefs a great deal of fun.

Reuben's pizza boasts prawns (suitably aristocratic), and a sprinkle of chilli; what makes this particularly moreish is the satay base, the tomato standard replaced with an exotic alternative that works wickedly well, as much as the Italian embassy would break off diplomatic relations with Franschhoek if word got back to Rome.

Continuing the Eastern theme, Mike, who comes up with the brilliantly inventive and the downright silly, when tossing ingredients together in his assorted restaurants, opts for a spicy chicken affair that takes the standard Thai chicken, and makes it considerably cooler, with a subtle bite.

And Margot completes the trio I've had a crack at, and again Italy's gone East: this time it's sliced rib, a smoky pork taste, that dices with sweet corn on an unusual blend of flavours — unusual for pizza, at least, if not for Le Quartier Français and its resident muse, for whom new and unusual comes as default.

My pick? I'm not sure, to be honest, but all three give Paul Kirsten's late and lamented classic — the blue cheese and glacéed fig delight (when Kirsten still sat at the helm at Bardellis) — some stiff competition, which is good news for the local pizza palate, and even better news for the Red Cross Children's Hospital.

You can keep Tracey Emin's garage; bring on April, and six new reasons to get eating pizza.

Visit www.colcacchio.co.za to wet your appetite.