Cube Tasting Kitchen
BYO IN STYLE AT CUBE
If you are a serious wine-lover with gourmet tastes and an aversion to restaurant wine mark-ups, Cube Tasting Kitchen in Parktown North, Johannesburg, could be your place. Accomplished chef Dario D’Angeli is best known for Greenside restaurant Yum. Now he offers tasting menus at a set price, but invites customers to bring wines at no charge. “We’re in the business of selling food, not wine. On reserving a table, I send out my wine recommendations for the menu but leave it up to diners,” he says. Cube charges R450 per head for 13 courses. As diners’ wines are displayed on a counter, the competition hots up as neighbouring tables try to outdo each other with interesting labels and vintages. “It’s not a quick in-and-out dinner. You need four hours, and tables of four to six people probably enjoy the evening more than tables of two,” explains D’Angeli. Menus are based on concepts. Take the autumn menu themed around colours, which starts with a white amuse of potato custard flavoured with lemon, sautéed white button mushrooms, shiitake and shimeji, and poached onions. It’s followed by a red theme of red pepper and peppadew jelly with sous vide cocktail tomatoes, dehydrated tomatoes and harissa ice cream. Then pink Alaskan crab with sautéed prawn tails, and so on...
Dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday. 4th Avenue, Parktown North, Park North Heights, Johannesburg; tel 082 422 8158
