La Colombe’s Chef Luke Dale-Roberts and His Quest for Culinary Excellence

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La Colombe boasts of simple elegance and great food. It is located in Constantia Valley which is about twenty minutes away from Cape Town. This restaurant is considered to be one of the best restaurants in South Africa. It has also been recognized as this year’s 38^th best restaurant in the world. The credit can be attributed to its Executive Chef, Luke Dale Roberts. He has definitely brought this South African restaurant to new heights. His extraordinary culinary talent has drawn more and more people to La Colombe.

It is a tradition of this restaurant to offer classic and modern French cuisines with Asian twist to them. The atmosphere adds to the memorable dining experience. Of course, the emphasis of the whole ambiance is on the food – and what great food it is! The chef often prepares seasonal creations.

Chef Luke Dale-Roberts took the executive chef post in La Colombe only in 2006. He managed to make his mark within the past two years. He introduced exciting dishes with Asian influences. This has practically elevated the popularity of the restaurant to new heights. Accordingly, he received due recognition for his accomplishments. He won 2008 Prudential Eat Out Chef of the Year. The restaurant also received the Restaurant of the Year Award. This year the restaurant grabbed the 38^th spot in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

He does not intend to rest on his laurels however. He intends to maintain the status that La Colombe has reached. He plans to initiate more changes in the reciopes, menu, and his cooking techniques, so he can always be on the top of his game. He wants to introduce more exciting stuff. Of course, he wants to do this without straying away too much from his cooking style. He intends, however, to push boundaries and test his limits. He will stick with French techniques, but he wants to introduce more Asian elements to his cooking. He is going to continue experimenting with new cuisines.

His cooking is continually evolving. He is drawing on Middle Eastern cuisines to add something new to his repertoire. He knows that there are big players who are coming into the South African restaurant scene, so he needs to be on his toes. He knows that he needs to continually offer something new if he wants to keep La Colombe at the top of the list. He will continue to excel. Fortunately, he can leave all the cooking at home to his wife after toiling away in his cehf job. Meanwhile, we can all sit back and wait for what the future has in store for this innovative chef.

Chef Luke Dale-Roberts’ Asian Beef Tartare

Serves: 6

Asian dressing:

100ml Hoisin sauce

1 large thumb ginger, peeled and finely grated

2 T (30ml) lemon juice

50ml honey

Micro or baby salad leaves

Beef tartare:

300g beef fillet, diced

100g avocado, diced

60g red onion, finely chopped

150ml soy mayo – to make the soy mayo, mix together 200ml mayonnaise and 150ml soy sauce

Coriander pesto:

100g picked coriander

30g pine nuts

1 garlic clove

100ml olive oil

Salt and pepper to season

Procedure:

Whisk all ingredients together for the Asian dressing. Mix all the tartare ingredients together and season with salt and pepper. Then blend all pesto ingredients to create a smooth puree.

The pesto can be dolloped onto the plate first, with the tartare ontop or either drizzled around the tartare. Press the tartare into a dariole mould and turn out onto a plate or press into a ring mould. Toss the leaves in the dressing and garnish the tartare with the leaves on top or serve on the side with extra dressing and pesto.

Image Credit www.flickr.com

Recipe via Taste of Cape Town

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