A visit to the brand new Pot Luck Club pop-up in Maboneng

(Image supplied)

The restaurant scene in Jozi has been abuzz with excitement around the news that acclaimed chefs, Luke Dale-Roberts and Frederico Dias are bringing the award-winning restaurant The Pot Luck Club to Gauteng as a pop-up restaurant – The Pop Luck Club. Bookings opened a few weeks ago for the pop-up and Food24 was lucky enough to get a booking on opening night.

The venue for the pop-up is the new Marabi Club at Hallmark House, which is on the edge of the Maboneng Precinct. We were told that The Marabi Club aims to ensure that music and food are each allowed their own spotlight, whilst ensuring that they work seamlessly together – basically this means, you can expect great food whilst enjoying fantastic jazz!

Food
Fans of the Cape Town original will be happy to hear that the Pot Luck Club menu still focuses on small plates or tapas style dining and you may well recognise quite a few of the menu items from the Cape Town menu.

The waiter recommended that we go for two to three small plates per person and share them. Each plate works well for sharing between two people and so, due to the fact that there were so many delicious looking options, we decided to go for six savoury plates between two of us. The selection that we went for was Pop Luck Fish Tacos – Fresh Ceviche, black bean puree, avo and sour cream; beef tataki with hoisin dressing, coriander pesto and ponzu mayo; Panko-crusted octopus with doenjang mayonnaise, pickled cucumber and octopus teriyaki; the incredibly tasty fish sliders; Dark Beer and Doenjang braised short rib and smoked beef fillet in truffle café au lait sauce (both meat dishes makes licking the plate quite tempting!).

The plates come out in order of heaviness of the meal and by the time the short rib arrived, we had certainly eaten enough, but couldn’t stop eating because it was all so delicious. Of course, there is always space for dessert and almond and apple tart, with burnt peanut butter, popcorn ice cream and maple glazed bacon is well worth the indulgence

Drinks
We started the evening with cocktails and then moved on to wine. The wine menu offers some great wines from smaller boutique wineries with some well-priced options and then some slightly more expensive special treats.

Service
The service is on point and staff were incredibly attentive and well versed on the menu. I really loved the thick, deep red velvet jackets and bowties worn by the maître d’, they add to the old school jazz club ambience of the venue

Ambience
The jazz club is named after a style of jazz that evolved in the early 1900s – a fusion of global and African influences. So whilst we enjoyed each beautifully presented plate, a talented jazz band played in the background.

The Pop Luck Club runs until the end of September 2017 and is open from 6 pm to 10.30pm from Thursday to Saturday and Midday – 3.30pm on Sundays.

For bookings, email thepotluckclub@marabijazz.com