Patina

Boys Dinner with the MBCC last night and we headed out for steak.

Steak, as discussed with the Tall Accountant en route, is one of those things that’s  easy to do well (no pun intended), but for precisely that reason, is difficult to excel at. There are lots of very good steak places, but there are very few excellent steak places, because cook it right and it’s about as good as it can get.

Or so we thought.

Patina had been recommended to us by several friends. And all of them said that it was an excellent steak place. The expectations bar had been set high, and we went in ready to be wowed or  disappointed.

It was a wow.

I’ve eaten a lot of steak in my life. Add the other 175+ years (eina) of experience around the table and you have a veritable panel of steak expertise. And yet it was widely agreed that this was the best that any of us have ever tasted.

That’s not to say that previous excellent steak places haven’t also been excellent. Barristers remains a favourite – I’ve never had a bad steak there in my (or more) visits. But this was something else. I enjoyed a 300g fillet with chunky chips (others raved about the risotto) and a blue cheese sauce, A couple of sides of onion rings completed the main course picture and I banged in a stonking Affogato for good measure.

The food was amazing, the wine was great, they have Stella Artois on tap and the service (Wilfred from Malawi – “He’s a Lilongwe from home”) was perfect.

It’s not cheap, mind. And if you’re going to charge those sort of prices, you need to back it up with a very special experience. Patina did that and more. Quite incredible, and now my new go-to steak house.

This was not a paid review. I had a good night and I think you deserve one too. You should go here.

Patina
35 Dean St, Newlands, Cape Town
021 823 9739

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