Bucket-list restaurants – we all have them. In a city like Cape Town, arguably the best in the world for culinary diversity and innovation, we might have several (or, in our case, a never-ending list in our Notes app). While many start the year with resolutions to eat better or ditch certain foods, we think it’s much more fun to challenge your palate with new and interesting things. So, to help you widen those horizons, we’ve handpicked Cape Town’s finest restaurants and dining experiences to add to your 2025 bucket list. Let the ticking off begin!
Editor’s pick: It’s all about the surprise and delight element of dining at La Petite Colombe
Sitting pretty in wine country, surrounded by mountain and vineyard, there’s technique and theatre aplenty at the highly coveted La Petite Colombe. No, the surprise doesn’t age – and thanks to head chef Peter Duncan’s fresh ideas, neither does the delight. Even before you’re sat at your table, La Petite Colombe bedazzles with its calm interiors in neutral shades and natural light that pours through floor-to-ceiling windows. Its clean-lined, timber-forward Scandi appeal sidesteps sterility via pops of colour and quirky art – bright-pink flowering bougainvillea here, handcrafted ceramics there. The Chef’s Full Experience will set you back R2,195 per head, but it hits all the major highlights for a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of experience. It’s worth splurging on the wine pairing as well – the Fine & Rare Pairing makes for a happy partnership with the flavours on the menu. The meal begins with applause-worthy snacks and then meanders into a salad with jewel-like pieces of langoustine meat (dolloped with caviar for good measure). It’s followed by the chef’s signature bread course – a sourdough loaf matched by pâtés and spreads. The bread and accompaniments are presented on interlocking hexagonal plates. It’s a knockout. A wafer-crisp pastry shell accessorised with crayfish, peri peri, ponzu and petals might be the prettiest dish on offer. More gutsy flavour can be found in the linefish, resting attractively in viskop chowder. A kalamansi and worm salt palate cleanser provides a refreshing transition to coal-grilled lamb teamed with celeriac and kapokbos. On hand to help, gracious servers unpack each dish and the provenance of notable ingredients. There’s similar textural and flavour brilliance with a gorgeous dessert, where the stone fruit centrepiece faces a quenelle of crème fraîche ice cream. Almond and almost dainty elements tie it all together with a bit of bling. La Petite Colombe’s 11-course tasting menu makes the night feel like a blissful eternity.
Leeu Estates, Dassenberg Road, Franschhoek
021 202 3395
reservations@lapetitecolombe.com
Clara’s Barn – South African nostalgia in a reimagined old barn
At Vergenoegd Löw The Wine Estate, the oldest barn in the Western Cape is now home to a restaurant helmed by chef Bertus Basson. Inside Clara’s Barn is a mix of exquisite old bones (Cape Dutch architecture, a thatched roof, whitewashed walls, cobbled stone floors and heavy, barn-like doors) and modern decorative touches like dark grey table linen, black woven rope chairs, contemporary art in minimal frames, dried flower installations suspended from the ceiling and a duck sculpture gilded with 24-karat gold leaf. It’s unlike any other fine-dining space you’ve experienced. Views of the farm and garden, framed by impressive bursts of pink hydrangeas in the summer months, reinforce the rural appeal. Now, the five-course tasting menu is where Clara’s Barn shows off – and rightly so. Head chef Drikus Brink recreates familial flavours for a sophisticated palate, tempering any embellishment with South African ingredients. From the delicately sweet honey and oat potbrood served with brown butter and San Gabriel honeycomb to the multi-layered seared Cape Point tuna dotted with labneh and local fish roe, the result is high-end dining with heartwarming delivery. Seasonal mains, such as braaied yellowtail, slices like butter and sings with intensely flavoured Saldanha Bay mussels, spinach, pickled kale and tarragon. Relish every mouthful. To finish, you might be treated to a dark chocolate tart of contrasting textures with Maltabella, coffee, roasted white chocolate, hazelnut and Ideal Milk ice cream.
Vergenoegd Löw The Wine Estate, Faure Village Road, Croydon
021 202 4372
Oasis Bistro’s Sunday Jazz Brunch makes for an extravagant afternoon
A weekend activity that’s pretty much always a winner in Cape Town is Sunday brunching. It’s to celebrate the end or start of the week, depending on how you see it. If a lavish buffet spread, free-flowing bubbly and live jazz sounds like a plan, cheers to the weekend at Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel. The setting is enchanting, housed in Oasis Bistro in one of the most iconic hotels. Your Instagram followers will love it. If the pretty interiors aren’t enough – think sparkling chandeliers, hand-painted murals – the dining terrace looks out onto the flower-filled gardens and Cape Town’s most glamorous hotel pool. Priced at R675 per head, plus an additional R300 for bottomless Boschendal MCC (and it really is limitless), you may think this sounds a little steep. But you’ll soon realise this brunch is worth every penny. With a plethora of dishes – all in abundance, freshly prepared and regularly replenished – come up with a battle plan to try everything. Begin with the cold cuts and cheese section before going for the seafood. Here, you can find signature highlights such as the freshly shucked oysters on ice, handmade sushi, sesame-crusted tuna and other treasures of the sea. Don’t overindulge though, for there’s also a selection of premium meats, main courses, salads and desserts at their designated stations – and they’re all yours for the taking over the three hours. It’s worth leaving room for the raspberry pistachio loaf and the Biscoff ‘burnt’ Basque cheesecake (the dessert of the year). Words fail us.
Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, 76 Orange Street, Gardens, Cape Town
021 483 1000
restaurantreservations.mnh@belmond.com
Eleven out of ten – experience Eleven’s 11-course tasting menu
Eleven has matured into far more than just Ōku and Yama Asian Eatery’s younger sibling. There’s a confidence to this relatively new business with its industrial-chic design that puts you at ease. Oak tables and Scandinavian-style chairs add sophistication to the exposed brickwork and rafters. During the warmer months, the doors open up to outdoor tables lining the sidewalk. The restaurant offers an à la carte menu at lunch, but if you have a few hours to spare, indulge in the more immersive tasting menu alongside pitch-perfect wine pairings from the sommelier. Informed service means the meal glides breezily through a procession of pretty presentations. It begins with aesthetically pleasing and texturally interesting snacks. House-made ciabatta arrives with a warming chilli oil, ranch butter, ash and paprika, while apple, cucumber granita, chilli and herb oil add an inspired lift to an oyster, frothy like ocean foam. Lourensford trout sets the mood – its strong salt levels met with a robust mix of atchar, mango, samphire, jalapeño and lime. Aged beef tartare is played off against capers, a rice cracker and peanut satay. With any luck, you’ll score the supple pasta pockets known as pork agnolotti that are entirely capable of developing a cult following. In a lemon cream sauce with a swirl of beurre noisette, sprinkled with fried sage leaves and crispy pancetta, it’s a small marvel of seeming simplicity. While tasting menus are often a tick off the bucket list, this is one you’ll want to return to again and again.
11 Huguenot Street, Franschhoek
021 023 3755
The luxury is in the simplicity of the Winemaker’s Lunch at the Rust en Vrede Tasting Room
As you drive up the quiet country road leading to Rust en Vrede Wine Estate, you know you’re in for something special. From that point, you’ve entered a new world – a slower one, surrounded by age-old trees and vast gardens, and soundtracked only by glasses and cutlery clinking enthusiastically (or the occasional whir of a helicopter overhead). Even at first glance, the Rust en Vrede Tasting Room feels like a bubble of tranquility. Once inside, its rustic-chic decor only underlines that sense of calm. At lunchtime, it’s a mix of classy business lunches, intimate birthday celebrations and fashionable friends catching up over multiple bottles of outstanding red wine. Regardless of the occasion, the real draw is the Winemaker’s Lunch, served daily from 12h00 to 15h00. Fireplaces flicker through winter, but summer on the veranda is paradise. It’s all blousy heads of roses and hydrangeas, hovering over the sweep of mottled-green vineyards. There are just three options on the menu – sirloin, fillet or salmon, each paired with a glass of wine. The most impressive dish is the Chalmar pepper-crusted fillet served with crunchy fries and a garden salad. It’s cooked with the kind of respect and sensitivity you’d expect of one of Brazilian-born head chef Fabio Daniel’s team members. Back at the other end of the menu, the crisp-skinned Norwegian salmon matches baby potatoes and seasonal green vegetables for the optimal combination of textures and flavours. Arrive early – they don’t take reservations.
Rust en Vrede Wine Estate, Annandale Road, Stellenbosch
021 881 3881
