Carne Kloof — Restaurant in Gardens

"Carne SA  is synonymous with quality meat, Milanese flair and unbridled passion"

Carne likes to let steak do the talking, from the moment the waiters parade a platter of quality meat before your table. Which unfortunately was not the case last night because we decided at exactly 9:30pm that we wanted to go to Carne Kloof for dinner , mind you their kitchen closes at 22:00. My friend called and made a reservation for a table and highlighted the closing time. But where there is a determined meat lover , there is a way. I called again at exactly 9:43 pm and asked them to please prepare my meal and that I was on my way.

Alongside prime beef, lamb and venison, you will get to see hanger steak, spider steak, prime rib on the bone. One of the signature dishes is the 1.2 kg La Fiorentina T-bone, a fine choice for a hungry nation which is what we opted for as there was three of us and all very hungry. This to be followed by their decadent chocolate fondant which I always argue that it needs to come standard with the ice cream! (story for another day this ice cream one)

The food was ,as always amazing and the glass of Optima went perfectly well with the meat. As sides we had  the mashed potato and spinach. Now the mash potato at Carne is another story I want to explore another day! Never in the history of potatoes has mash tasted that good!

Even though it was late and you could see they were preparing to close , we were not rushed . One did not get a sense of "you need to leave"

Great food. Great service .. Great great Great!

Carne Kloof is slowly but surely starting to replace Carne on Keerom as...

While the staff were great, the cocktails were passable, the food quality is either forgettable or notablely inaccurately cooked, like severely.

The steak tartare was interesting enough, though the ultra thick, immovable delicious tar that was the decorative balsamic was a bit confusing.

Good portion of breadsticks with it though pretty heavy handed with the anchovies, didn't seem to showcase the actual meat to well, decent texture though.

Decent negroni but I ended up trying a grapacino, which was some odd watery drink with grapa in there somewhere

I ordered a flat iron steak, notably one of the most tender steaks

And Jesus did I have a time trying to cut this raw piece of allegedly medium rare steak.

This steak was like a summery gray in color with some grill marks, serving only to say that the stove has been on for more than a while.

Like completely raw, not delicately cooked to accentuate the taste of the meat, cut thinly as a art form representing the purest of beef flavors through lightly seared, deeply ruby red serving after being rested, raw. Like the chef is terrified of the grill, raw.

Like my steak knife struggled on the fresh sinew in the meat. I sent it back, and they simply chucked it on there split in 2 and reheated it to a cooked level.

It was genuinely well cooked albeit they could only skip the resting process this way.

All in all, this is an insult to the produce they peddle and the lack of basic attention to detail when preparing steak...

The food at this restaurant is always delicious and well prepared. The service, however, is consistently disappointing. We went there for dinner. We were initially seated outside and asked for an inside table. We were told that the only free table was a four seater (made up of two two-seaters pushed together) and that there were no available two seats indoors. A few minutes later, we watched as the staff separated those two tables and gave two different couples the inside two-seater tables, without offering them to us. We complained but nothing was done. Then, the starters that we ordered (beef carpaccio and Caprese salad) took about 30 minutes to arrive. This is a ridiculously long wait, bearing in mind that these dishes are cold and require no cooking. When we asked for oil and vinegar, that, too, took forever to arrive. We again waited for ages for our main courses (fillet medallions and lamb rump) to arrive. When the meat was brought to the table, we waited a further period of time for the side dishes to be brought, while our food got cold. By now I was ready to walk out of the restaurant. In addition, we were not told that one of the sauces, salsa Verde, had run out. This shocking level of service at a so-called fine dining restaurant at this price point is nothing less than absolutely pathetic. We spent over R400 each on food alone, no alcohol. All in all, a...