A bar that takes bookings? Katharine Jacobs investigates what’s so special about Outrage of Modesty.

Fast facts

Price: cocktails average between R80 and R100
Serves: cocktails, wine, beer and bar snacks
Best for: a stylish before- or after-dinner drink
Parking: there is street parking on Bree and Loop Streets – or take a taxi. You’re going to be drinking, after all!
Star ratings: drinks: 5, service: 4, ambience: 5

A seasonal serve of Caperatif at Outrage of Modesty. Photo courtesy of the bar.

A stylish bouncer with an earpiece is the only sign that you’ve arrived at Outrage of Modesty. If you’ve got a booking, or if there’s space in the 24-seater bar upstairs, he’ll usher you inside into a dark, black stairwell, lit only by neon lettering, that leads up to a beautifully manicured and genuinely tiny bar – and a whole new world of cocktails.

The people

Australian Luke Whearty and partner Aki Nishkiura have teamed up with Alliance Brands (the people behind House of Machines) to open a cocktail bar to end all cocktail bars. Luke and Aki are the team behind an über-hip bunker-like bar in Singapore called Operation Dagger – so although this place is upstairs, it’s no surprise that it feels like you’re underground.

Aki and Luke

Drinks

No branded bottles adorn this bar. Spirits are made in-house, and the kind of alcohol used in each drink is omitted from the menu. As our waiter explains, the idea is to choose a drink based on flavours you enjoy, not a preconceived idea of what gin or whisky taste like.

I duly select the Berry and the Bee for its wild blackberry flavours, and am rewarded with a refreshing drink with a sweetness provided by perfumed honey, and the tang of fennel pollen. The spirit here is apparently gin – which I’d normally shy away from – but which turns out to be perfect, infused by Luke with wild lemon pelargonium, using something called a rotary evaporator. Altogether, the drink is perfectly balanced in sweetness and sourness, in the same way that an excellent curry might be.

The Berry and the Bee, served with fennel pollen, and drunk through a glass straw. Photo courtesy of the bar.

The menu is studded with local ingredients and Luke explains that he and Aki arrived excited to create drinks using South African flavours – not a universal palette of cocktails that could be replicated in London or Barcelona.

“It‘s like painting with only five or six colours your whole life and suddenly someone gives you an extra three or four – you get so excited. We have all these ideas floating around. We need a little time to digest it,” he says.

The amasi-based drink, the snow. Photo courtesy of the bar.

Already, though, Luke and Aki are using these new ingredients in inspired ways at Outrage of Modesty. Amasi, for instance, is paired with naartjie and white chocolate in a cocktail named Snow. Atop a creamy, yoghurty mix of house-made amasi and Junmai Daiginjo sake infused with buchu and toasted wild rice, floats a little white chocolate cup filled with naartjie and amasi pearls that have been flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen. It’s clever, and about as far away from the strawberry daiquiri as it’s possible to be.

Caperatif is the only brand visible in amongst the glass vials and jars. The uniquely Capetonian vermouth is something which Luke read about years ago and fell in love with when he arrived in Cape Town. Right now, he’s serving it with fresh naartjie, Swartland eucalyptus honey and wild buchu.

The icy hot drink being prepared. Photo courtesy of the bar.

My personal favourite is the Icy Hot. As the name suggests, it’s served in two layers – one ice cold, the other warm. Drunk together, they form a frothy hot-and-cold confection of sweet green apple cut by honey vinegar and laced with coconut and lavender. You’d never say there was tequila in there – albeit infused with green apple and wild lavender. When it’s gone, I eagerly look round for a top-up.

If cocktails are really not your bag, Outrage of Modesty offers some carefully selected wines and craft beer from &Union. Force Majeur chenin and Franschhoek Le Lude MCC rub shoulders with a Dominique Peron from Beaujolais and a Grenache from Domaine Magellan in the southern Rhône region.

Food

A cube of compressed watermelon is served as an amuse bouche before the drinks. Photo courtesy of the bar.

The bar also serves bar snacks, including house-marinated olives, sesame cucumber, baby carrots fermented in the leftover whey from the amasi in the Snow drink, and spiced cauliflower and almonds. There’s also a serving of three West Coast rock lobster tails with wasabi aioli and lemon butter (R200), if you’re feeling a little hungrier/more flush.

Ambience

A tiny raised window in the old building lets the evening light stream into the small charcoal attic space. Brown leather banquettes and a row of chairs along the lowered bar seat just 24 guests. Giant wallpaper versions of John and Jackie Kennedy festooned with tattoos, by artist Indian Giver, preside over the space, and give it a stylish and subversive feeling. Even the loo is trendy – with its own neon slogans and mirrored ceiling.

The wallpaper mural by Indian Giver.

Service

It might all sound incredibly pretentious and a bit intimidating, but thanks to welcoming staff and down-to-earth bartenders, I feel like I’ve gained access to some kind of secret society, rather than been excluded from one.

The verdict

This is a unique, special place – and yes, I do think that the experience justifies the prices. Outrage of Modesty is the place to go on a date once you’re sure the person you’ve found is a keeper – particularly if they love design and unusual experiences.

Have you found your cocktail nirvana at Outrage of Modesty? Let us know what you thought by writing a review.

Eat Out critics visit anonymously and pay for their meals and drinks. Read our editorial policy here.