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Dining out is generally associated with, and taken as part of everyday consumption choices of the middle classes. However, eating at top-end restaurants is a problematic experience for some members of South Africa’s black middle class, proving that it is a loaded consumption practice. This appears anomalous given the much-touted “rise” of the African middle class in the country. This article uses essays by Ndumiso Ngcobo and Fred Khumalo, as well as interviews with both authors to explore why a potentially pleasurable experience such as eating out results in sullied gratification. Using the concept of public identities in which the restaurant is a theatre, the article argues that blackness complicates middle-classness, suggesting that affording pleasure is not the only condition to enjoy it; there might be need to manage leisure. The questioning of blacks’ legitimacy as diners in these spaces raises questions about race, class, citizenship and one’s humanity.

Managing sullied pleasure: dining out while black and middle class in South Africa