Luke Dale Roberts meets his guests at the door. At 7pm on a winter's night the cobblestone courtyard, with its clay-brick walls and bric-a-brac shops, carries a sense of intrigue that frames his Cyrano de Bergerac profile.

Luke Dale Roberts meets his guests at the door. At 7pm on a winter's night the cobblestone courtyard, with its clay-brick walls and bric-a-brac shops, carries a sense of intrigue that frames his Cyrano de Bergerac profile.

The once-industrial setting of the old Pyott's (a household name and inventor of the much-loved Romany Cream) Biscuit Factory is carried through into the restaurant - raw walls and a working centre with its batterie de cuisine and cast of young chefs with chiselled profiles, a tableau that suddenly comes to life like a wind-up device.

A girl with a stab of blonde hair sharpens knives; huge male hands handle the tiniest frond with the delicacy of an elephant dancing on a leaf.

The menu is bejewelled with fugitive new tastes: liver and liquorice jus, juniper salsa and Korean tartare.

I go for yellowtail sashimi with tendrils of umami onion purée, a combination that allows delicious routes from classical sauce decadence to the skinned economy of Asia with the wild-mountain taste of mirin and yuzu jelly, which invites finger dipping and is crisped up with filigreed chips.

My companion and I share the next course (we have a choice of three starters and one main) of veal tongue and scallops with peanut and elephant-garlic purée sprung with a bold and complex velouté spiced with ginger that is an out-of-body experience. The scallop is fine and squashy and the tongue is very tonguey: you either like it or you don't. Dale Roberts tells me it is brined for six days, then poached and finally pan-fried.

"I couldn't sell tongue in my last restaurant. Here people can't get enough. You have to keep reinventing. I met this French cook, Pierre Gagnaire, in Korea, in his 60s. He hadn't lost his passion for cooking. It was so inspiring. Producing food for people can be really crappy and it is easy to burn out."

While my friend tackles trout tartare and some foamy miso, deemed "to die for", I go for foie gras in a thin stripe (which overcomes its kitty-litter appearance) with red cabbage and fig confit and a mouthful of rabbit loin, a sad-looking limb for a girl brought up on jugged hare.

The artistry is to combine tame with wild, never upstaging the main ingredient. My main dish, pan-fried springbok loin, just bloody enough, is never overpowered by the pungent porcini jus, a dish of such locality that it reminds me of setting out to find Boletus edulus in the woods at just this time of year. There is nothing like food gathered from the region.

The springbok tastes of the veld and I am reminded of picking grapes in the south of France, where we collected snails and roasted them on a fire. In the village was an ancient woman who was reputed to be the last female truffle hunter in France (you had to be a virgin) who one night cooked us a meal of tortoise, which she served with wine to which she had added wild honey and herbs.

Wines are paramount in The Test Kitchen, with wine buffs swirling and sipping. When I tell the wine waiter that I know nothing about wines, he brings me samples and I fall for Palladius, a white blend from The Sadie Family that has an antiquity: as if someone had said: "Bring me a magnum of old Mumm from the cellar".

The aperitif is a pomegranate daiquiri, and throughout the meal we are brought unexpected extras - foams, jus, geleés and a cep velouté sprinkled with grated chestnut that is recklessly tasteful.

Too full for pudding, I spoon a couple of mouthfuls of pine-nut parfait with chestnut crumble that hits the sweet spot.

The service is both knowledgeable and unobtrusive. Although the menus seem intimidating, the atmosphere is easy, with people feeding forked enchantments to each other. A tiny bulb turns out to be a chestnut.

The whole thing is a balancing act, tastes that range from mandarin skin to pepper - an underrated substance over which wars were once fought.

"The main ingredient has got to be the star," says Dale Roberts. "Everything else is the supporting cast."

The artistry of this culinary combustion may have been lit by his experience as former head chef of Cape Town's La Colombe. Now The Test Kitchen is packed every night with people eager for new sensations.

"My job is mainly about creating," he says. "I try to be original and we do a lot of testing. If I start a dish and it looks as if it won't work, I just drop it. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and see the whole thing in my mind's eye, and it always works. When I first arrived in South Africa, the selling point was always 'export quality'. It seemed it couldn't be good unless it was good for someone else. That is changing. The expectation is definitely higher. So is the level of skill."

It is a perfect evening, with not a rocket leaf in sight.

And at least nobody can say: "I could have cooked that at home for half the price."

THE LOW DOWN

HOURS: Tuesday to Saturday 12.30pm to 2.30pm and 7pm to 10pm.

PRICE: Lunch: à la carte menu - main dishes between R65 and R130. Dinner: three courses R345; five courses R440/R600 with wine pairing; 11-course tasting menu R800.

VIBE: Lively with a sense of theatre.

PARKING: Plenty of parking in Biscuit Mill.

WHAT TO WEAR: Anything from Hitchcock heroine to hip-hop.

IF IT HAD A SOUNDTRACK: John Cage's silent composition 4'33'' (the joy is that it has NO music).

PEOPLE WHO WILL LIKE IT: Foodies, arrivistes, sophisticated townies, ex-New Yorkers and Michelle Obama, who missed out by being taken to another Woodstock restaurant.

PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT LIKE IT: Even farmers from the Karoo will love it for its novelty value, plus there's lots to drink.

HOT TIPS

1. Menu changes regularly, so check website before you book.
2. Take your time deciding and don't tuck in too fast, there is a lot to come.
3. Arrive on time. This restaurant is run like clockwork.

SCORECARD (out of 5)

Food: 4.5

Ambience: 4

Service: 5

Value for Money: 5

TOTAL: 18.5 out of 20

Location:

Shop 104 A, The Old Biscuit Mill, 375 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town - 021 447 2337

www.thetestkitchen.co.za