Since it first opened in 2010, chef Luke Dale-Roberts has used his Cape Town restaurant, The Test Kitchen as a ‘creative and culinary hub’ where he can exercise maximum innovation as a chef in his quest to constantly innovate, delight and surprise his loyal following of food lovers. It’s this passion for innovation that inspired us to include him as one of our headline chefs for our upcoming Flavors of a Rainbow Nation journey, happening from October 27 to November 5 this year.
And so, we are delighted that The Test Kitchen was awarded 50th place in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards earlier this week, when the best culinary masterminds from five continents gathered in the Spanish port city of Bilbao for the awards ceremony. Gaining this recognition as well as being awarded No. 1 Restaurant on the African continent, is no easy achievement. This was confirmed by Tamsin Snyman, the Academy Chair for Africa and Indian Ocean Islands for the World’s Best 50 Restaurant Awards, who says: ‘Given that, along with India, we are the two geographic regions in the world that receive the least amount of traveling voters – this award means that every voter that experienced The Test Kitchen loved and voted for it.’
For Luke, food has always been about discovery. ‘We’re constantly re-evaluating our approach to what we do in the kitchen and restaurant from flavor to ingredients and cooking techniques,’ says the British-born chef, who came to South Africa in 2006 as Executive Chef at La Colombe Restaurant. ‘Prior to arriving in South Africa, I’d done a prolonged stint of traveling and working in restaurants in London, Europe, and Asia and so by the time I opened the Test Kitchen followed by The Pot Luck Club in 2011, I craved the space to experiment and take some risks.’ Located within a stone’s throw of each other in the Old Biscuit Mill, a repurposed factory setting in a rapidly gentrifying area of Cape Town, Luke’s restaurants have had foodies hooked from the get-go.