The chef who deconstructed shepherd’s pie

Apparently Luke Dale Roberts rarely sits down for lunch at the front of house.

His lunch is taken with the staff  and usually involves “something starchy to keep the engine going”.

I suggest we stick to tradition — there is an entire foodie subculture dedicated to what the world’s most famous chefs really eat. 

But Luke is having none of it so we sit down to experience a soupçon of the delights the world-renowned chef and his superlative team rustle up in his newest endeavour in Rosebank called Carbon TTS.

His restaurants are like a four-part invention — a sublime composition in taste with variations on the original Test Kitchen theme. His two offerings in Joburg (Carbon, out of the ashes of The Test Kitchen, and the Shortmarket Club) and two in Cape Town (Fledglings, at the old Test Kitchen site, and the Pot Luck Club) make for a happy symmetry in our fine-dining world.

As a Joburger I have always resented that Cape Town has by virtue of the tourism and its culinary reputation the majority of SA’s superlative food offerings.

Luke ushered in some of this fine dining when he took his first South African job after training in France and working there, in the UK and in Asia with some of the globe’s most renowned chefs.

“It was all à la carte at first. I slowly introduced the idea of a tasting menu — South Africans where not used to the idea.”

If you’ve watched celebrity chefs on TV you may have a notion that they are all of the big swinging appendage variety with egos and tempers to match. Luke is an iconoclast on this front — he is immensely down to earth and charming.

“That is why I did not want to go down the Michelin star route, I get thrown quite quickly if someone is giving you a hard time ...”

But what he lacks in irascibility he makes up for in passion for food. All food. For example we find ourselves discussing the joys of Marmite and the horrors of the shortage.

“I once made my own Marmite for a dish at the Test Kitchen.” He describes with relish how he created the slightly burnt toast crumble to go on top and I can immediately picture a small dish of culinary perfection but laced with an earthy humour. Which probably best describes the chef's approach to food. 

He is spending most of his time at Fledglings TTF,  a mentorship and empowerment project  started by his wife and his adopted South African extended family who moved in with him, his wife and his son during the pandemic.

The idea is a simple menu that builds skills in the entire operation of a restaurant and it gives him so much pleasure and joy because of the sheer energy and hope in the future it represents.

He is also surfing as much as he can, avoiding the burnout that can be a career hazard in the food industry.

What is his food culture? “My food is really about my life and my experiences and that’s Asia, South America. And I don't like putting parameters on what I make  because I like different stuff. That’s the fun of it.”

He tells me his most sentimentally triggering food is shepherd’s pie. “I used to make a deconstructed shepherd’s pie with Wagyu beef at The Test Kitchen. Shepherd’s pie is a definite nostalgic one.

“But I mean, if you were to give me a slice of French pâté, a baguette and a glass of red wine, I would be back next to the motorway with my family having a picnic on the way to Switzerland. We would go once or twice a year and you drive all the way from London in two days.”

His mother is French Swiss and his father British. “My mom was a French teacher, my grandad was a doctor on the English side. And then my grandad was a watchmaker on the Swiss side. So I suppose I’ve got a little bit of the  precision from them and I think I got my creative brain from my dad.”

On his food bucket list is a return trip to Japan with his wife and son. As for us, we can be pleased that he did not follow his initial career path which at 16 looked like a life as an electrician. Happily he is sparking joy in these little plates of seafood paella and duck that I am sampling blissfully right now.

He concludes: “I think my feeling is, listen, enjoy, enjoy the team and people you work with, don’t treat them like shit. Because you’ll feel like shit.

“People say I can’t believe you’re still in the kitchen cooking. And I say it’s one of the major things in my life that actually makes me happy. Why would I stop?”

Sunday Times readers are invited to enter the NESCAFÉ GOLD ‘Crafted Beyond Compare’ 2022 Winter campaign competition to stand a chance of winning a bespoke dinner personally hosted by the globally renowned chef Luke Dale Roberts at Carbon, his new Test Kitchen outpost, in Johannesburg.  

There he will create a multi-course dinner inspired by the premium quality coffee and the taste of the smooth rich coffee bean. Carbon TTK will be closed to the public for the exclusive dinner where the winner and seven guests  of their choice will experience a truly unique chance to dine with the charming chef

Enter by purchasing a jar of NESCAFÉ GOLD. The competition closes on the 26th of June. 

For more information, visit NESCAFÉ GOLD’s s social media platforms @Nescafesa, #craftedBeyondCompare on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

• Visit nestle-esar.com for T&C’s