Taste comes first for top chef
CHEF Luke Dale Roberts started his journey with food at the age of 16, just after he left school.
“I was going to become an electrician and at the last minute my uncle arrived from Saudi Arabia where he was a restaurant manager and he suggested I go into hospitality. I thought about cooking because it was something I enjoyed.”
After doing a college course he started working in the kitchens, washing dishes.
“I was addicted immediately from the time I started the course and my mom bought me a book by a famous chef and I tried cooking all the dishes from it. I was addicted as soon as I put my finger in it.”
He describes his journey in food as an interesting one. It started hard, with him hating his first few jobs because of the bullying and abuse he faced in the kitchens.
“It was a hard nut to crack, but I learnt a lot of ways that I didn’t want to run my own kitchen one day. You learn from your failures.”
Some of his highlights include winning the Eat Out Awards and getting into the Top 50 restaurants.
His overall cooking philosophy includes working with honest flavours because taste is the most important thing on the plate.
“Rather than the look and story, it has to be tasty and I derive from my experiences in Asia and also my classic French training.”
Roberts honed his skills in Zurich, Switzerland, before moving back to his homeland, the UK, to better his craft and cook for Hollywood A-listers, among others, in London.
It was his post as an executive chef for the Accor Hotel Group that truly exposed his culinary adventures in Asia.
While Roberts has opened a variety of restaurants in Cape Town over the years, it was his exploration with the Test Kitchen in 2010 that gave him the edge.
“I wanted to put a kitchen in the middle of a warehouse. Put some tables and chairs around it and make the kitchen the focal point of the restaurant. I wanted to explore food and flavours as far as I could. It has been an amazing time.”
The original Test Kitchen in Cape Town has become an upliftment project where Roberts has created a space for learning and teaching. In Joburg, The Test Kitchen Carbon is a cutting-edge fine-dining experience.
Their signature dish, The Billionaire Shortbread, is a bite-size chocolate looking thing but it is actually a savoury dish.
“People are always surprised by that. It’s the customers that decide on the dishes and that one is a signature.”
When it comes to food trends in
South Africa, Roberts said while he didn’t keep an eye on the trends a lot of the time as he was focusing on his own dishes, he found that there was a leaning towards more homey, good cooking as opposed to the smoke-andmirrors effect.
Roberts has collaborated with Nescafé Gold coffee for the #CraftedBeyondCompare campaign.
Roberts, alongside Nungu Diamonds, Lumiere and designer extraordinaire David Tlale, take consumers of the brand on a journey of luxury through the five senses.
“For us it was a good alignment
so we jumped in and took the bull by the horns. ‘Crafted beyond compare’ embodies what we do. We craft an experience and that experience is unique as a result.”
The brand will be embarking on the campaign in winter and consumers
stand a chance to win luxury prizes that include the ultimate dining experience at Roberts’s establishment.
“It’s going to be a cool, long set menu and will show what we do at Test Kitchen Carbon … a journey with food,” said Roberts.