Very familiar with the Culture Club Cheese day-time setup, Eat Out critic (and cheese fiend) Linda Scarborough tries its night-time offering one autumn evening.

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Fast facts

Cost: R70 on average for breakfast and sandwiches; R100 for lunch; R60 for tapas dinner plate
Serves: Breakfast and lunch seven days a week, with tapas on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights
Best for: Daytime cheese feasts
Parking: It’s on a particularly cramped part of upper Bree Street, so try one of the side roads
Star rating: Food 5, service 3, ambience 3

Food

For breakfast there are wonderfully decadent options like French toast, three-cheese omelettes, eggs rancheros, and croque monsieur or madame. Later on in the day you may have your work cut out trying to decide. The camembert mac and cheese is an experience, aptly described on the menu as ‘pungent, rich, gooey, woof’. Also look to the likes of bourbon-glazed pork belly, pan-seared tuna with lemon beurre blanc, and the best grilled cheese of your year.

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For dinner (Thursday to Saturday) the tapas fare is generously flavoured, most of featuring a nod to cheese of some kind. The parmesan and duck pancetta croquettes arrive golden brown and oozing with umami. A sliced sirloin is beautifully cooked, served with a sweetish and tangy tomato chutney and creamy labneh. You might also opt for cheddar-and-mushroom risotto balls, tuna ceviche with chilli and lime, or baked truffle camembert with pear-and-citrus salad.

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However, for any meal of the day, you have to order the cheese board. This is not the pedestrian platter you may find elsewhere; it’s refined and elegant, packed with unusual tastes and textures. The specially made cheese crackers alone will make your palate sing. Add to that freshly baked, nutty-tasting sourdough from Woodstock Bakery, a bowl of local olives, perhaps a pickled waterblommetjie and spoon of sauerkraut, razor-thin slivers of crisp apple and a gathering of grapes. And that’s not even mentioning the star of the show, a selection of the day’s best cheeses. Gonedsa aged gouda-style cheese, High Mountain, Highfelder from Belnori, and the Ganzvlei Goucambert are some favourites. (Browse the wall of cheese for some more ideas.)

The best part is that you can buy your picks of the platter to take home afterwards, whether it’s cheese, crackers or preserves. (Once I was lucky enough to get some fragrant quince preserve made by a local tannie, and it blew my mind.)

To finish, the baked cheesecake is exemplary, topped with a bitter lemon preserve to offset its rich, immersive creaminess. Superb. The other offerings don’t shy away from attention either: wood-fired bread-and-butter pudding with berries and gruyère shavings, and a dark-chocolate ganache tart with mini banana loaf.

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Drinks

A one-page list of alcoholic drinks includes some appealing boutique wine options, interesting beers and ciders, and some fine spirits. If it’s too early for booze and you’re not going to have a great Deluxe coffee, then why not try something new like locally made hopped apple juice, live fermented kefir smoothies or kombucha?

Service

The waiters are friendly enough and know a lot about the cheese on offer. Do yourself a favour and chat to owner and passionate cheese man Luke Williams for a recommendation of what to take home from the fridge.

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Ambience

You can’t miss it from the street: Culture Club Cheese is a bright yellow-painted block that resembles its namesake. The small space feels best suited to daytime eating, when the ambience is bustling, cosy and welcoming, with whistling coffee machine and cheerful chattering all around. The rustic mismatched wooden chairs and tables are fun. Evenings tend to be quieter affairs.

And…

Culture Club Cheese hosts themed nights with pairings of cheese with olives, wine, honey and even mushrooms. Lookout for Fondue Fridays throughout winter. The team also offers hampers and wedding cheese cakes.

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