With experience in some of the world’s most exclusive restaurants, Brit Luke Dale-Roberts prestigious career was recognised in 2010, with South Africa’s La Colombe – the Constantia Uitsig wine estate’s restaurant, where Dale-Roberts was executive chef – being awarded 12th place in the illustrious San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants of the World Awards. That year, he set about basing himself in a “creative hub”, where he could innovate, experiment and host demonstrations and events. The space would be an intimate 40-seater restaurant in the fashionable Cape Town district of Woodstock.
Located in the district’s Biscuit Mill complex, The Test Kitchen is all warehouse/industrial-chic™, but not in that awful try-hard way; it’s authentic, stylish and you want to spend time there. Especially with delights such as Brisket, fillet, tongue and sweetbreads, horseradish “café au lait” and sauce gribiche setting us carnivores off into a plate-licking frenzy. There’s The Pot Luck Club next door too, where Dale-Roberts offers small plates in a cocktail bar cum gallery space setting – it looks like the British-born talent has set his sights on cornering off the city’s hip Woodstock district for himself… but when he’s doing it with this level of panache, who the bejesus is gonna stop the blighter?
