WMBW Eats – Chalk and Cork

This post has been a long time coming. In fact, its close on 3 months now.

I’ve been trying to come up with a way to make my restaurant reviews different to those you get on foodie blogs, something simple that can maybe answer everything you might wanna know about a place in simple way. That’s what that form above is all about, or at least that’s what it’s supposed to be. A quick 5min overview of my experience. that way you can see wether it’s somewhere you might wanna go or not, before delving into the details of the article.

About those details, well, there wont be too many, see I’m not a massive foodie either, so you wont hear me talking about mouthfeel or unami – what even is unami? Does it give you a rash if incorrectly prepared? I’ll be giving you simple honest feedback, because this review isn’t for Mr Unami, but rather for the everyday gentleman who would like to take his lady out for a bite to eat.

So, lets begin shall we?

I visited Chalk and Cork at the end of last year. My team and I were going out for our year end lunch and wanted somwhere we could sit outside and enjoy good food and wine on a relatively tight budget. I had heard some pretty good things about it and it seemed pretty festive every time I drove past – everyone sitting joyfully in a nice little courtyard under the shade of the tree’s. “Lets give it a bash” I thought.

There were about 10 of us all in all and so we decided we’d try and order a little bit of everything and eat family style. Good decision that. The charcuterie and cheese platters (served with toasted ciabata) were delicious enough, though pretty standard. The real tapas winner was the salt and pepper squid with lemon aioli, i know this because I only managed to taste it when we ordered it for the third time.

The final trick was Pizza and I suspect this may just be what Chalk and Cork will become famous for. See, there are a lot of pizza restaurants in town, 5 on Kloof street alone that I can think of, but very few actually make great pizza.

We decided to order ALL THE PIZZA! Not much considering there are only 4 pizzas on the menu. Personally I think this is great, too much choice just leads to confusion and order envy anyway. After giving all 4 a try we decided to give the parma ham another try, twice. The pizza’s are good. I mean really good. A thin crispy base, quality ingredients and the perfect amount of toppings – by the perfect amount of topping I mean its not so overloaded with crap that you can’t pick up a slice. The pizza, much like the rest of the food is a real quality over quantity affair.

They apparently make a killer carb free pizza using a cauliflower base, but none of us were scared of carbs that day, so didn’t bother trying one. Soz.

I’ll be back sooner rather than later so I definitely suggest giving this place a try. You can find them at 51 Kloof Street (Cape Town) – just opposite the lifestyle centre. They’re open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and though they have plenty of seating upstairs I would suggest the courtyard on a nice day.

You can take a look at the menu on their website and call +27 (0)21 422 5822 or mail info@chalkandcork.co.za for bookings and queries.

Okay. Stay fancy