Simon Wilkinson reveals why he gave the d’Arenberg Cube Restaurant a score of 9/10

IT won’t please everyone but the food at d’Arenberg’s Cube Restaurant will thrill diners with a sense of adventure.

• Simon Wilkinson reviews d’Arenberg Cube restaurant
• Advertiser Food Guide 2018
• A look inside the d’Arenberg Cube

BRILLIANT or bonkers? Trash or treasure? The d’Arenberg Cube will polarise visitors at every turn. But its third-floor restaurant, I think, is a rival for the state’s best eating experiences.

No doubt the ongoing controversy surrounding The Cube brings immense pleasure to its creator Chester Osborn, who has turned a childhood fantasy with Mr Rubik’s puzzle into a marketing juggernaut, not just for his winery, but also the McLaren Vale region as a whole.

The four levels inside The Cube are filled with a collection of art, mementos, furnishings and ideas, hoarded over a lifetime, in which the only connections are the owner’s random obsessions and left-field humour.

Husband-and-wife head chefs Lindsay Durr and Brendan Wessels with sous chef Jamie Steele.

The restaurant isn’t for everyone either. The “long” and “extra long” set menus are expensive (up to $190 a head, plus drinks) and time-consuming. The portions are small and many of the ingredients obscure. The service can be convoluted. The toilets are on the floor below and, for blokes, mean peeing into a gaping cartoon mouth. Ick.

But, put all the eccentricities of the setting aside, concentrate on the plate before you and the cooking of South-African-born husband-and-wife chefs Brendan Wessels and Lindsay Durr is at the highest level.

■ SIMON WILKINSON REVIEWS d’ARENBERG CUBE RESTAURANT

While many of their dishes weave together countless processes and hi-tech kitchen tricks, they build most often into sublime flavour symphonies in which each element either enhances or riffs off a hero ingredient.

The d'Arenberg Cube at McLaren Vale. Picture: Supplied

Highlights? A phytoplankton scroll, the Cube’s “bread”, is a sinful, buttery delight. Blue swimmer crab with cauliflower in various forms and mild curry spices is a thing of delicate beauty. Raw sardine blanketed in a snowstorm of gin and tonic ice gets points for both bravery and execution. Smoked eel layered with rice congee, white soy gel and sea parsley under a lardo cover is Harry-Met-Sally good.

The meal isn’t perfect – the four-part duck and beetroot extravaganza doesn’t quite come together, the “Nose Candy” is tawdry – but diners looking for fun and adventure won’t find much better than this anywhere in SA.

I rate it alongside our elite restaurants – the likes of Orana, Magill Estate, Hentley Farm. But I’m certain, as with the rest of the Cube, that the score of 9/10 is bound to provoke an argument.