My SecretEATS experience*
I was a little slow on the uptake with SecretEATS. I heard about it pretty early, but couldn’t make any of the dinners for about 3 months because of the craziness that my life was.
SecretEATS is a pop up dining experience which is very cleverly marketed. It’s invite only (but anyone can request an invitation), and seats are “limited”. After signing up to their mailing list, you’ll get an email saying that “you and 3 friends have been invited to an exclusive secret dinner”. Sounds intriguing right? Until you click on the link and realize that “invited” = pay R650 a ticket. R650! A meal has to be pretty amazing to justify that cost. But I kept an open mind, and waited until I experienced a dinner for myself before I judged it.
I had heard of pretty spectacular dinners at venues like Market on Main- I love the idea of an underground dinner in the inner city, so I was really excited when finally the dates worked out and I managed to RSVP to a dinner. I invited one of my BFFs to join me (also known as backup photographer when Rishav isn’t around).
The venue remains a surprise, until the morning of the event, when we got an sms saying it would be held at the OCD venue in Sunninghill. Sunninghill?!?! I wouldn’t voluntarily hang out in a mall in Sunninghill on a Saturday night, so I was a bit bummed about this choice of location.
When we arrived at the venue, we were given welcome drinks, and ambled around, before finding a seat (we could sit anywhere). I didn’t really like the florescent look of the venue, it felt like we were at a corporate year end event.
Very soon, everyone was seated, and we quickly started chatting to the people around us. The beauty of these dinners is by virtue of the fact that everyone there was prepared to pay R650 a ticket, you’re guaranteed to meet some fellow foodies. I love sharing restaurant tips, so it was cool to meet some like minded peeps.
Our tickets included a specific brand of wine on tap, which was nice. However, we waited AGES between courses (which were all mediocre), and ended up only finishing the dinner at around 11pm, after which we had waited an hour for dessert. At this time, people were looking at their phones in boredom,while others skipped dessert and just left.
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| This veggie main goes down as one of my all time worst meals ever |
Ok, so this was my experience of the event, BUT, I have to let you know that the organizer has assured me that this was the only dinner he wasn’t personally involved in, and he’s now making sure to oversee each event again. It’s unfortunate that I ended up reviewing this particular dinner, but it’s my policy not to do repeat reviews so I declined the owner’s offer (it’s not fair to other restaurants who get one shot only, and what about all the people who paid to be there on that night). From what he’s told me, I’m sure that future events will be much, much better.
Look, I think the concept is cool, especially if more effort is put into the evening itself to make it special- at R650 I would’ve expected some entertainment, at least- but I say go to one just to check it out for yourself. It’s a novel concept and one I think is worth experiencing.
Visit www.thesecreteats.com for more.
November 5, 2013 @ 8:21 am
As a restauranteur who has committed to paying rent and staff and all the bills, I have to say these events are a thorn in my side. I should be so lucky to get R650 a head out of my guests. For that I have to provide EXTRAORDINARY service.
November 5, 2013 @ 8:22 am
I’ve also been so keen to go to one of these, but i’ve never been able to make it.. the one champagne picnic was more than R650 I think.
A little crazy – you would expect a famous chef or something.
The CT dress up one’s look fun but it sucks that the food doesn’t live up to the hype.
November 5, 2013 @ 10:02 am
Hi Emma-Jane! Thanks for your comment and feedback. As the organiser, I do feel the need to clarify a few aspects of our SecretEATS evenings. All of our events in Joburg have been priced the same (R650/person) and this service is all inclusive – from unlimited welcoming cocktails, wine shipped up from a top farm in the Western Cape (sourced and not sponsored) to a top, industry-renowned chef.
Unfortunately, we do admit that the evening Hasmita attended wasn’t up to our standards as we had brought on some local Joburg folks to run the evening given our business in Cape Town on the night. Because excellent service of the highest quality is our mandate and number one priority, we reached out to all of the guests that had expressed dissatisfaction with the evening and invited them back on a “pay what you like” basis and we’re very happy to announce that all of them were thrilled with the second experience. We’re here to do everything in our power to ensure that all our guests are more than satisfied with our service. We ensure that SecretEATS is a pleasure for everyone invited and we are dissatisfied with anything less.
We’d love for you to take a look at the photos from our evenings in both Cape Town and Johannesburg, a look at our chefs ranging from Nicky Gibbs, Vanessa Marx, Craig Cormack, Rozanne Scholtz, Matt Manning, Brad Ball and more. These are highly trained, highly skilled Chefs with international experience delivering an outstanding evening for guests time and time again and we’ve received nothing short of rave reviews for our events.
While all we can do is apologise for Hasmita’s experience and offer her another opportunity to join us, we certainly would love to “wow” you with our evenings. Here are some photos from one of our most recent evenings with Steenberg’s Brad Ball to give you an idea of the caliber of our evenings: http://on.fb.me/17bZV36
Hope this helps. 🙂
Greg
November 5, 2013 @ 8:50 am
Yeah, I think it’s novel but wouldn’t go to more than one because of the price. It also appeared that the wine and venue were sponsored (can’t be certain though) which made it even harder to justify exorbitant price
November 5, 2013 @ 11:00 am
I’ve heard about this and even received an “invite” but just because you say something is “secret”, does not make it exclusive or good to start with. No exclusive chef, sponsored wine and venue, and the food (from your pics) looks awful and very run of the mill.
After reading your review I’ll keep hitting the delete button the next time I see one of their “invites” in my inbox.
November 5, 2013 @ 12:21 pm
Hi there! If you’d like to pop us an email at eat@thesecreteats.com with your name and we would be more than happy to remove you from the invitation list.
November 18, 2013 @ 2:05 pm
The November edition was very disappointing. A simple art galery on a shopping mall as “stunning venue”, a glass of pineapplejuice with a shot of wodka as ” delicious welcoming cocktail”, plain white undecorated tables, a simple 4-course dinner with a bony rabbit as main and a scarcely filled puff pastry as desert, no coffee or tea to finish, let alone some sweets, it was a poor, poor show for our R550. What this guy does best is marketing. His stories promise you the world and his language consists mainly of superlatives. The story sounds to good to be true and indeed, it isn’t. So go and spend your money in a truly good restaurant.
November 18, 2013 @ 3:49 pm
Oh what a pity that you guys have had a bad experience – I have managed to get myself to two of these events and loved it. I agree that the R650 is a tall ask and maybe my curious nature just can’t be left out of the secret, but out of all the pop-up dinners that I have attended, I haven’t really found anything to hold a candle to SecretEATS (see http://touristinjozi.blogspot.com/2013/10/underground-dining-and-secrets-shhh.html). My schedule has unfortunately not permitted me to attend more of these, but I certainly will, given the opportunity again.
I must say that looking at the responses from SecretEATS on this page, they seem to really strive to address customer unhappiness as well – it may be worthwhile giving them another chance!
November 19, 2013 @ 5:06 am
Hi there. I went to the same event as you and was dissapointed. When I mailed them and told them about it – they were amazing. They invited me to come back to another event and pay only what I deemed it to be worth after the event. It was such a stunning evening – I would have been happy to pay much more than the R650 charged. Set in an art gallery/workroom, with the artists present to talk about their work. Food absolutely incredible, delicious wine (in unlimited quantities) pairings and amazing service. One of the nicest evenings I have had. They really showed such attention to detail and made us feel amazing.
Sometimes mistakes happen and I truly believe it is how people recover that matters. We are going to our next evening on Friday and cant wait!
November 22, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
I recently went to a SecretEats event and upon reading your review I am not able to relate as my experience is in stark contrast. When a friend and I stumbled on the SecretEats “movement’ we were at first intrugued as to who would attend these kind of events and where it would be. We landed up in an eccentric art gallery in the middle of Jozi, surrounded by interesting company, candle light and the beautiful skyline just outside the window. We had a wonderful time!
Perhaps one might say that R650 is too expensive but in my mind I think it is well worth it as Greg the owner of SecretEats and his team really do put together a mix of interesting people, outstanding service, beautiful venues delicious wine and food. I have not experienced anything close to this calibre in this genre of events currently on offer to us Johannesburg’ians.
In fact tonight I will be attending another one of their events of which I have received the location and my secret passcode (fun!)… I am looking forward to it!
I must make special note of the personal and hands on approach the owner Greg Zeleny has given me from day one, it’s a rare and refresing experience! – Thank you SecretEats!