The art of reinvention

Two much-lauded restaurants have shaken things up at their respective locales, reinventing themselves in the process. The Pot Luck Club has made the move from its somewhat commercial Rosebank hub to the suburban Melrose hotel The Peech, while the team at Galjoen have transformed the upper level of the restaurant into an eatery of its own, with a focus on elevated surf and turf.

Both are serving up a fabulous selection of big-flavour small plates.

The Pot Luck Club

Since opening its doors in Rosebank, chef Luke Dale Roberts’s globally inspired, small-plate-centric eatery has been a hit with Joburg’s foodie crowd, its tapas-style à la carte offering well suited to the bustle of the city.

Now, almost two years later, the restaurant has found a new home in the serene and sophisticated surroundings of The Peech Boutique Hotel in Melrose. Having recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, The Peech has long been a hub of culinary talent, hosting many top chefs’ residencies and pop-ups.

At the helm in The Pot Luck Club’s kitchen is chef Ebie du Toit who, alongside Dale Roberts and The Pot Luck Club’s Group head chef Jason Kosmas, has curated a menu that blends the eatery’s signature small plates with dishes tailored to the Joburg palate.

There are all the favourites from the beloved Woodstock eatery, including the famous fillet with café au lait, the moreish PLC fish sliders, and a tataki — in Joburg taking shape as a venison dish with textures of beetroot and fig, served alongside chicken-liver parfait and finished with a saffron and verjus reduction.

While staying true to the eatery’s distinct style, the team also caters to the city’s appetite for more hearty portions with the inclusion of peri-peri chicken and pork-belly Penang.

The space itself does a fabulous job of merging the serenity of The Peech with the style for which The Pot Luck Club has become known. Décor touches such as macramé dividers and Nguni-hide chairs, as well as a magnificent ceiling installation reminiscent of birds in flight, bring some signature edge to the restaurant space.

It’s everything that has made The Pot Luck Club a standout (both in Cape Town and in Joburg) — bold, punchy flavours with a refined edge. And in this new space, it strikes a perfect balance between its signature energy and The Peech’s understated elegance.

thepotluckclubjhb.co.za

Seebamboes

The duo behind the much-lauded Cape Town restaurants Belly of the Beast and Galjoen, Anouchka Horn and Neil Swart, have teamed up with chef Adél Hughes and artist Liebet Jooste to launch a new collaborative project, Seebamboes.

Situated on the mezzanine level of their seafood-focused restaurant, Galjoen, the new eatery features a playful and dynamic tasting menu that cheekily reinvents the concept of “surf and turf”.

Rather than offering up the hunk of meat and overcooked prawns you may have come to expect from this nostalgic menu item, the team — staying true to their sustainability-driven, nose-to-tail conscious cooking — have combined sea- and land-harvested produce in a more nuanced and experimental take on the concept, with a particular focus on greens from both land and ocean.

“We’ve always been very passionate about ‘surf and turf’,” says Horn. “We want to take the nostalgic aspect and flip it around, creating something new out of it. It could be seaweed with meat or a mix of seaweeds with land vegetables. Because vegetables are also turf, right?”

Like Swart and Horn’s two other Harrington Street spots, Seebamboes will not present a set menu or fixed number of courses. Instead, each service will offer a surprise tasting experience, with the ingredients available on a given day — along with the season — guiding what arrives on your plate.

There could be a classic Cape staple such as West Coast snoek (perhaps served as a pâté with retro biltong powder and braaied grapes) or a flatbread topped with a combination of ingredients such as octopus and ’nduja sausage. There might even be a reinvention of a nostalgic dish, such as the carpetbagger, reimagined as blesbok loin served with a steamed mussel-and-curry chowder.

No matter the menu on the day, you’re guaranteed a selection of cleverly conceptualised dishes drawing references from land and sea, sometimes together and sometimes on their own. Each plate delivers superb flavour, stunning textures, and a great story to go along with it.

Accompanying the menu is a lovely list of interesting and off-the-beaten-track wines, with a definite focus on the funkier side of South African winemaking — a little natural, a little low-intervention — with refreshingly many served by the glass. A perfect match for their creative cooking. seebamboescpt.co.za

From the April edition of Wanted, 2025