Cape Town Restaurants

[VivreManger]

My wife is going off to Cape Town later this week for a conference. She has learned (from the NYTiems and other sources) that Bukhara and Africa Cafe are both good. Any comments and suggestions?

I am posting this in ME & Africa, but since this rubric gets little attention -- the last posting was more than ten days ago -- if I get no response within the next day or so, I will repost the same query in general food topics. I hope that will violate no ethics.

[StephenT]

I don't know if this is too late, but here goes...

I used to live in Cape Town but now go back once a year or so. Last time I went (almost a year ago now), some friends suggested that we go to Bukhara, which didn't exist when I lived there. So we did and it was great. The dishes weren't quite what I'd come to expect from eating at Indian restaurants in London, but they were really full of flavour, the service was good and I loved the general ambience. Possibly because we waited for quite a while for a table and drank a bottle of wine while waiting and then were given a free bottle of the same for our trouble. I shall certainly return when I'm next in Cape Town in a couple of months.

I've not been to Africa Cafe... might be somewhere to go if your wife wants to taste African food. I don't know if you've seen their web site, it's here.

[Kikujiro]

The Africa Café is fun for that kind of thing, but inevitably a bit touristy. Which is a bit rich of me given that the following recs are also fairly touristy.

I don't know how long you'll be there or how much free time you're have, but one of the most rewarding ways to eat is to drive to one of the wineries. The drive alone is worth it (the Cape looks like the West Coast of the USA, only better). Easily one of the best for dining is Buitenverwachting in Constantia. Also try Au Jardin in Newlands and the Quartier Français in Franschoek. Boschendal, also in Franschoek, has a restaurant but the informal café outside is in some ways more attractive for a light snack or tea.

In the city, tea at the Mount Nelson hotel has a certain colonial kind of majesty. Almost USA in feel (to me, being a Britisher) is Panama Jack's seafood restaurant by the docks.

Blues in Camps Bay has enjoyable food and fantastic views. Nothing haute but am very fond of it.

Edited January 2, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[Kikujiro]

Oh yeah: an obvious non-food-related suggestion while she's there is a visit to the District Six Museum. One of those places you get the most out of talking to a staff member or volunteer.

Edited January 2, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[VivreManger]

Thanks to all. My wife now has all the suggestions.

[cabrales]

I have not yet visited any part of Africa, but one tour my family had at one point contemplated involved staying at Table Bay Hotel and Sun City. Are those resorts ones with interesting restaurants, to members' knowledge?

http://www.luxres.com/HotelProfile.asp?Hid...rnalID=CNGL2002

Pardon my ignorance, but are there any game reserves that serve meals with big game?

Edited January 8, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[StephenT]

Table Bay Hotel is a hotel on Cape Town's Waterfront. It's a fairly recent development and I remember reports about its restaurant having a zillion-bottle wine cellar or something like that. I also remember they toned some of it down slightly after a while because very few people could afford to stay there. Of course you'd be within quite easy reach of many other restaurants in Cape Town from there.

Sun City is a resort at the other end of the country, vaguely near Johannesburg. It was built mainly as a casino in the bad old days when gambling was banned in South Africa but allowed in the various "homelands". I've never been there, but I'm sure it has at least one or two decent restaurants as it caters to a large degree to international customers.

I didn't go to game reserves much when I was young, but last time I went back on holiday I did. The restaurants there didn't impress me much, but I do recall eating game. I don't recally what it was, probably a small to medium antelope. There is a restaurant near Johannesburg that serves large chunks of grilled game - giraffe, zebra, etc. Not sure how "big" it gets though - probably buffalo. Elephants are not endangered in South Africa (in fact they need to be culled in game reserves from time to time) but I don't recall ever seeing an elephant steak on a menu.

[Kikujiro]

Cabby,

Like Stephen, I've had medium-size game (like kudu and impala) but nothing big. How big do you want?

Edited January 8, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[cabrales]

Animals like lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, tigers, leopards, say?

[Kikujiro]

Cabby, you're being wilful, aren't you?

Tigers are found in Asia, not Africa.

Some subspecies of the animals you list (like mountain zebra and black rhino) are endangered to the point where eating them is really unconscionable. But others are less endangered and can be found in some places.

Many farmers do tend to plug leopards and lions wandering on to their farms (in Southern Africa, e.g. Namibia, a 'farm' can be a massive expanse of mountainous land without much growing on it).

But why go all that way for lions and tigers and bears, oh my!, when you can order delivery right in your own back yard?

edit: I think this subject deserves its own thread. Adventures in Eating or GFT?

Edited January 9, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[cabrales]

Hmm -- Further support for learning how to cook.

[Charles Smith]

Animals like lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, tigers, leopards, say?

In Johannesburg there's a restaurant modeled after a train car that serves a game buffet, complete with hippo, zebra, lion, etc. Nothing stood out as excellent, and the hippo, as you might imagine, was on the fatty side.

[wgallois]

Have posted on Cape Town restaurants before. My personal favourite was The Savoy Cabbage which produced really interesting fusion cuisine; not fusion of convenience at all, but a genuine attempt to reflect the different culinary traditions and ingredients of southern Africa.

[StephenT]

PERKINS, PAKENHAM-WALSH, and AINSWORTH:

A tiger?!

EVERYONE:

A tiger?!

[mayhem]

PAKENHAM-WALSH:

A tiger... in Africa?

[VivreManger]

I just wanted to thank all those who responded to my query.

My wife and a large group from her meeting went to the Bukhara Restaurant which on the whole they all enjoyed. Particularly favored was the ostrich tandoori. She ordered a vegetarian curry that was only so-so.

She had a very good meal at the Bayside Café, 51 Victoria Rd.,Camps Bay Beachfront, Thebaysidecafe@freemail.absa.co.za where she liked the Cape Salmon and another fish whose name she thought was King Calp.

In Stellenbosch she visited an Afrikaaner store and restaurant -- Oom Samie se Winkel -- where she picked up a quaint group of spiced recipe packets -- South African food for idiots. The packets contains a detailed recipe accompanied by the actual separately measured and packed spice mixtures that are to be added at each stage of the preparation.

I will describe the wines in a separate post.

Oom Samie se Winkel did freak her out since it was the most blatant example she came across of unreconstructed Afrikaaner racism. The store displayed for sale souvenir rods with which to beat people, persuaders, as they were called. The restaurant prominently displayed a notice that it reserved the right to refuse service to anyone, the only instance she noticed such an assertion during her visit, mostly spent in the Cape Town area. The bobotie which seems like a South African-Indonesian moussaka was tasty.

Oom Samie se Winkel reminds me of the redneck barbeque pits in the South.

[kerriar]

Any recent updates on dining in Cape Town?

Has anybody eaten in the Atlantic Grill restaurant at the Table Bay Hotel - this is now being run by Conrad Gallagher, ex Dublin, ex London, ex Brooklyn Federal Prison (who presumably don't have that many Michelin starred chefs on the guest list).

Whatever about the more tempestuous aspects of his life (definitely a likeable larger than life character who was acquitted of any misdoing), he can produce great and inventive food.

Elsewhere Table Bay Hotel is said to be expensive - what does that mean in SA today?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

[jparrott]

Savoy Cabbage was awesome last May. In Stellenbosch, Wijnhuis is solid (and a nice place to linger at lunchtime with good wine). Also Java Cafe for breakfast and e-mail (our morning home-away-from-home when we go visit our producers--I am a wine importer). 33 and Vineleaf are also wonderful for lunch or dinner.