Black Sheep is a relatively new Kloof Street restaurant in the style of an English gastropub. From the outside, Black Sheep looks fairly pub-esque, but it offers gourmet style food. There are no printed menus at the Black Sheep, just a blackboard listing what’s available on the day depending on the season, the weather, and the chef’s mood. That said, the blackboard menu has quite a variety of choices. There were ten to fifteen options each for starters and mains.

The cuisine on offer covered a wide variety of flavors. Most dishes are a little out of the ordinary and will appeal to the more adventurous eater. Starters included some salads, pates, sweetbreads, salmon trout gravlax, and steak tartare. I opted to try the sticky char sui pork ribs with quick cucumber and daikon kimchi. The ribs had great flavor but the meat was a little dry.

It was even more difficult to decide what I wanted for the main course with so many interesting options on offer. The five spice Hoisin pork belly with Chinese cabbage and sweet potato puree sounded very tempting, as did the grilled ostrich with red cabbage. However, I decided to go with the kingklip (a local South African fish) in coconut curry with eggplant and zucchini served with rice, sambals, and poppadum. The fish was amazing with the sauce—just the right about of spicy—but the eggplant was not my favorite. The delicious fish more than made up for it though. Black Sheep also has a very extensive wine list. If you’re planning ahead, consider trying the chef’s “many, many hours, very, very slow roast shoulder of lamb with root vegetables and new potatoes” or the “7 hour pot roast leg of lamb larded with bacon and garlic”, both of which serve six and need to be ordered 72 hours ahead.

The atmosphere was very nice and relaxed yet clean and modern. The bar area was buzzing, and it seems to be a very popular restaurant. A reservation would be smart. Black Sheep, like the name suggests, is definitely worth a try if you like gourmet food but without stuffy formality.