“What exactly is that?” my friend asks, pointing at the very first item on the menu. We’re sitting at Luke Dale-Roberts’s newest venue, The Pot Luck Club and Gallery and I have to confess, I’m not entirely sure. Usually, I’d check with the waiter, but this is The Pot Luck Club after all. “No idea,” I tell her. “Let’s order it and find out.”

In the States, pot luck dinners – where each participant brings a dish – became popular in the past century with community and church groups. Luke’s newest venture is a little like this. Next door to famed restaurant The Test Kitchen, this tapas and cocktail bar is billed as a place for Luke and his team to experiment. From Ivor’s crispy duck spring roll and Claus’s coconut and calamari salad to Wesley's tapioca with passion fruit sorbet and toasted coconut, the menu does feel a little like a collaborative cookout.

The food
Our mystery dish arrives speedily. For some reason – probably the word miso – I was expecting soup, but the steamed edamame with miso and toasted garlic salt turn out to be a bowl of green beans, sprinkled with big crystals of flavour-infused salt. “Put them in your mouth, and pop out the peas,” the waiter tells us, giving us a bowl for the skins. The peas inside are fresh and pure. Paired with the intense salty, umami-flavoured salt, they make an unusual appetiser.
 
Service is rapid, and soon Ivor’s crispy duck spring rolls arrive on our milled steel table. It’s rich, sweet and tasty, and barely devoured before the crispy pork belly with Luke’s X0 dressing, red cabbage and apple slaw arrives (apparently one of the most popular dishes on the menu).

Claus’s coconut and calamari salad is a hit – the calamari done in a feather-light batter. There’s also the smoked and fried quail, corn and shimeji salad, corn and ginger butter… and then it’s time for dessert.

We’ve both got plenty of room left in our bellies – thanks to the small tapas portions – so we feel perfectly justified in ordering both desserts on the menu. Wesley's tapioca and passion fruit sorbet with toasted coconut, and the fresh summer berries with fig leaf ice cream both turn out to be incredibly light and summery: while the passion fruit sorbet is zingy and fresh, the fig leaf ice cream is incredibly subtle.

Other dishes to try include the mushrooms on toast (our editor, Abigail, raves about this dish), three kinds of tartare (tuna and two beef with Asian and classic dressings), a salad of blue cheese mousse, and steamed queen scallops in the shell with Asian-style grapefruit sauce vierge.

The mood
More Manhattan loft than Midwest church group, the atmosphere is hip and happening. Matte black walls and steel would be slightly foreboding but for the beautiful wooden chairs and a wooden bar, which warm things up a little. Contemporary art on the walls is designed to change with the seasons, keeping things current.

The drinks
Cocktails are the order of the day, from Asian-inspired sake mixtures to the more conventional. I order a tasty ginger and ginseng concoction that comes served in dainty, gold-rimmed tumbler. There’s also an excellent wine list, with some fabulous, if pricey, options.

The people
Luke Dale-Roberts, who is also head chef at the Test Kitchen, took home the Chef of the year title at the 2011 Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards. Luke spent time working all over Asia – from Singapore to Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines – before moving to SA, and it shows in the menu with its slightly Asian slant. The Pot Luck Club, however, is also about Luke’s talented team taking the wheel. Something tells me their names will soon be almost as widely known.

The verdict
This is an entirely different kettle of fish to neighbouring The Test Kitchen, the fine dining establishment ranked at number two in the recent Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards Top 10. Don’t come expecting silver service: the atmosphere is of fun and sharing. Waitrons are relaxed and friendly, without being over-familiar. There are two sittings, and service is rapid, with food flying out of the open-plan kitchen. We found some of the dishes incredible, and others merely tasty. The key, it seems, is to order a big variety and to share with as many people as possible. At a neighbouring table, a large group sat, eating their way through the entire menu and squabbling over the best dishes. This, it seems, is the way to do it. After all, variety is what a pot luck evening is all about.

By Katharine Jacobs