“Why is a samosa £32?”
Jess doesn’t even glance up from the menu. “Ah,” she says, as though she’s about to gather us all in the drawing room, “it comes with foie gras.”
Well, that’s a first.
Pop-ups, of course, are hardly novel. London has been in the grip of temporary culinary flings for the better part of a decade; chefs alight, cause a flutter, and vanish before one has properly digested the bill. For the itinerant international chef, they are a calling card to a market that might otherwise require a long-haul flight and a forgiving expense account. I’ve scribbled in these pages before about such affairs – the sort that allow one to taste a chef’s genius without having to contrive a holiday around it.
Which is how Jess and I found ourselves in a grand, slightly incongruous ballroom, sampling the London iteration of The Pot Luck Club, the Cape Town institution helmed by Luke Dale-Roberts. I confess to a small, unseemly glow of esoteric pride here: not only had I heard of him, I had eaten at his restaurant. In Cape Town. I know.
The original Pot Luck Club occupies a penthouse atop the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock – it’s edgy, industrial, and faintly anarchic. I remember adventurous dishes served with the insouciance of street food, a sort of gastronomic rebellion with very good lighting. The London pop-up at the Waldorf Hilton, by contrast, feels as though it has been gently air-dropped into a faded ballroom: gilded columns, lofty ceilings and, as we soon discovered, a spring floor that lends a curious buoyancy to proceedings. As the staff glided past, trays aloft, we bounced lightly in our seats like well-dressed children at a wedding disco. It felt oddly apt.
Happily, the spirit of the food survives the translocation intact.
The menu is an intriguing, thrilling beast – so much so that a “flavour code” is provided to shepherd diners through sweet, sour, smoke and spice. One fills in an order sheet, dim sum-style, scribbling dishes down with increasing abandon. When they arrive, they arrive on boards, in baskets, in earthenware bowls – an orchestrated jumble that encourages sharing and the occasional territorial skirmish.
We opted for the recommended five plates, only to be told – firmly but kindly – that the mushrooms on toast and the broccoli Penang were non-negotiable. Music to our ears. Decision-making had become paralysing.
First to seduce were the chickpea and goat’s cheese ‘fries’: thick, golden cuboids in a paper sleeve, demanding to be dragged through a sharp aioli and a nostalgic ketchup. Fries, I had thought, were a closed subject. I was wrong. I would return for these alone.
Then beef fillet, smoked to the point that Jess declared it reminiscent of Lapsang Souchong (I shall spare you her grandmother’s rather more baroque comparison). It arrived simply sliced, but bathed in a truffled “café au lait” sauce of such silken decadence that the aforementioned fries were shamelessly repurposed as dipping implements. Civilisation, at that moment, felt secure.
Each dish presents itself as a small riddle. The Taco 2.0 is not merely a taco; it is its second incarnation; it arrives encased in a deep-fried shell that shatters theatrically, revealing ceviche within. “Ah,” we murmur, mid-dissection, “this is the point.” The delightfully homely ‘mushrooms on toast’ are less a rustic afterthought and more a study in umami – earthy, yielding, and utterly comforting.
When the peri-peri chicken landed, I braced for a Nando’s homage. Reader, it was not. A bisected chicken breast, crowned with a bright tangle of kale and pepper salad, it was both restrained and quietly complex – a reminder that South African cuisine is broader and subtler than its export-friendly chains.
And then the broccoli. Beneath its innocuous, almost pedestrian, exterior lay a riot of chilli, coconut and mint – heat, sweetness and herbaceous lift in harmonious collusion. It is no small feat to make broccoli the star turn; this manages it with swagger.
The drinks list, entirely South African, is a delight for the curious. Stellenbosch names wink knowingly from the page. When I enquired about the wine, I was steered confidently toward The Chocolate Block. Really? I enquired. But this was not the supermarket stalwart, but a limited 2024 edition with far more gravitas than its ubiquity might suggest. It paired handsomely, thank you very much.
And yes, the samosa. Not a lonely triangle, but a crisp cylinder, spring-roll-esque, its pastry shattering to reveal richly spiced filling. A slice of foie gras lounging adjacent feels disconnected but works a treat when combined, but it was only upon further excavation of the accompanying coleslaw that we unearthed a sliver of smoked duck – a culinary plot twist that elicited indecorous delight.
This, I think, is the essence of The Pot Luck Club: surprise layered upon surprise. It is playful but not frivolous; clever but not exhausting. One eats, one debates, one dips fries into sauces with alarming enthusiasm. By the end of the evening, gently bobbing on our spring-loaded floor, Jess and I felt not so much that we had dined, but that we had been let in on a particularly delicious secret.
£32 for a samosa? When it comes with foie gras – and a little theatre – one might even call it a bargain.
The Pot Luck Club pop-up runs until 30th June 2026 at the Waldorf Hilton, Aldwych, London WC2B 4DD. Dinner is served daily from 5pm. For bookings, please visit www.hilton.com. For more about The Pot Luck Club, please visit www.thepotluckclub.co.za.