Cape Town Restaurants
 

My wife and I are coming over on the 2nd Jan from (cold) Scotland - we both enjoy eating out (including fish and anything spicy!)<BR><BR>Top 3 restaurant recommendations in Cape Town please would be helpful for our first 2 nights in town before we go further afield.<BR><BR>Thanks<BR><BR>Jack

Hello Jack,<BR><BR>I have always been reluctant to pass on the information that I am going to write about in this mail as some of the restaurants that I am going to mention are totally unknown to most and I have always frequented these establishments as special eating places for my own visitors to Cape Town. My main reason for changing my mind and now mentioning these establishments in this mail is because I have changed my thinking with regard to the secrecy of these special places in that they certainly deserve clientele and I don’t believe that publishing this information on Fodors will change the secretive atmosphere that my visitors enjoy when we visit some of the below mentioned venues.<BR><BR>If you are looking for a fish restaurant my suggestions would be:<BR><BR>Willoughby’s in the Waterfront (no pre-booking at this restaurant<BR><BR>Panama Jacks in the harbour. (447 3992)<BR><BR>The big hidden secret fish place in Cape Town is Tangos (7126631) This is a venue that locals seem to have kept to themselves. You will hardly ever see tourists at this local family type fish venue. It is rather far out of the city centre (25 minutes away in Kendall Road) but imho this is the very best fish restaurant in Cape Town. When you are in this restaurant you soon realise that fresh fish is being brought through the door minutes after being caught in the local Kalk Bay harbour. Furthermore if you want to find great varieties of local fish Tangos is the place to eat. My favourite fish that I generally eat at this venue is musslecracker. You will have to go hunting all over Cape Town for to find in another local restaurant serving this delicious fish variety.<BR><BR><BR>Spicy foods could land you up in many places:<BR><BR>Biesmiellah is a great Cape curry restaurant<BR><BR>Wangthai is a Thai restaurant that serves very spicy foods. <BR><BR>The big secret for wonderful spicy food is Bibis (7618635). This is the restaurant I would recommend most of all. Fabulous Indian cooking. Once again this venue is about 25 minutes out of the city centre and is situated in lower Kenilworth This is where our local Hindu community eat and the food is simply out of this world. Fair warning – No alcohol is served or allowed in this establishment. <BR><BR>Jack I imagine that you will be reading of the normal run of the mill restaurants in answers from others to your question. Make no error there are many other wonderful restaurants in Cape Town that are well worth visiting. The above restaurants are NOT the normal run of the mill recommendations that will be made in most “eat out book” recommendations. Willoughbys and Panama Jacks could well come in for mentioning in some of the above books or possibly by others writing to this page. The restaurants mentioned in my list are the ones that locals frequent and my advice always remains “when in Cape Town do eat what the Capetonians eat”. <BR><BR>Enjoy our great city when you visit us next week.<BR><BR>Selwyn Davidowitz<BR><BR><BR>

Selwyn is the man on the patch - I'm merely a frequent visitor - so here's my 'tourists' advice!!!<BR>Blues in Camps Bay - book and get a window table if you can.<BR>Panama Jacks as Selwyn suggests, in the docks, pricey though.<BR>Savoy Cabbage in town<BR>Five Flies in town.<BR>If you are going further afield as you say, think about restaurants in Franschhoek, some of which are brilliant. I like La Petite Ferme for it's great view - must book well in advance though, and The Grande Roche in Paarl.<BR>Frankly wherever you stop to eat, you'll have wonderful food and wine for peanuts!

You might take a look at the article on Cape Town in the travel section of the NY Times yesterday (December 29). You could access it via Internet. P

I second Willoughby's. They have the greatest grilled calamari there. Another place we enjoyed is the Codfather in Camps Bay (behind the Pick &quot;n Pay shopping center). You choose the different types of fish you want and they cook it for you. You pay by the weight so you can choose as much or as little as you want, plus sample an array of very different types of fish. The butterfish was awesome.