The Test Kitchen was named Restaurant of the Year for an unprecedented third year running at the 2014 Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Restaurant Awards. Enjoy this rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the philosophy and team at work.

Executive chef Luke Dale-Roberts is ever humble about his world-renowned eatery at the Woodstock Biscuit Mill in Cape Town: “The Test Kitchen was always about putting together a small restaurant that explored flavour as far as we could – and we’re still exactly that. We still work to that same brief…

“We try and really study an ingredient; I think that’s part of modern cooking today. It’s looking at an ingredient and seeing what you can extract from it and how you can process it differently to enhance it to its best possible potential.”

Luke says he and chef Ivor Jones have shifted focus slightly, and guests at The Test Kitchen can look forward to more local flavour (if they can get a booking, that is): “We’ve started to move a little bit more in the South African direction. Sometimes it’s thematic, like the smiley; and sometimes produce-based, like amasi.”

Read the full review of The Test Kitchen and see photographs and menus here.