CBD Café Culture
The Mother City has made quite a name for itself in recent years for the amount of time and energy it has dedicated to rejuvenating its historic buildings. As a result, the Cape Town CBD is increasingly becoming a place to see and be seen, and with the recent addition of three quirky new cafés and eateries, there is now even more reason to head to town.
Dear Me
Sandwiched between a host of storefronts in Longmarket Street, Dear Me doesn’t look like much from the outside. But step inside and each fascinating layer of this quirky new brasserie, deli and bar reveals itself like a Russian matryoshka doll. This 180 year-old, three storey building was in a sorry state before the current owners lovingly restored and decorated it, with the help of architect and urban designer Mario Bonadei and interior designer Francois du Plessis.
Nowadays a walk to the top floor reveals Tjing Tjing, a wonderfully eclectic Asian-inspired rooftop bar nestled under the attic eaves of the building. As well as colourful cocktails and saucy shots, it also serves up a tapas style menu, perfect for pre-dinner nibbles. Just below is a private function room decked out in stylish monochromatic white which is used for events, and also plays host to a chefs table for Thursday evening dinners.
The heart of Dear Me, however, is well and truly in its floor level brasserie. Although it only opened its doors in March this year, it is already difficult to get a table here, which is little wonder, based on its superb menu.
“The menu changes every day because it is based on what’s available seasonally and locally,” explains Chef Vanessa Marx, adding that they also have a preference for ethically farmed, free range meat and only serve green listed, sustainable fish. But perhaps the most notable thing about Vanessa’s wholesome menu (think seared Lourensford trout and free-range beef brisket bourguignon pot pie) is that almost every item on the menu is available in a variety of different options to suit a smorgasbord of dietary restrictions.
“A lot of restaurants are not willing to accommodate people with dietary restrictions, and this can make eating out quite difficult. I am diabetic and my sous chef is lactose intolerant, so we know how it feels. We get a lot of customers who are gluten or wheat intolerant so we stock 100% rye bread which is wheat free, as well as gluten free bread. We also make all of our own nut milks so that we can accommodate vegans and people with lactose intolerances,” she explains.
This all-inclusive concept seems to be paying off – based on the brisk lunchtime trade – but Vanessa is also quick to point out that even those patrons without dietary requirements are welcome, and while wholesome food is the name of the game here, there is still plenty to indulge in.
Dear Me (165 Longmarket Street) is open Monday to Friday from 07h00 to 15h00 and on Thursday evenings for dinner. Visit http://www.dearme.co.za/ for more information. �
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Skinny Legs & All
Charming luxury café, Skinny Legs & All, is a wonderful testament to just letting go and following your heart. Twin sisters Jesse and Jaime Friedberg were both ensconced in university careers, but when a retail space in the CBD opened up, the two jumped at the opportunity to turn a shared passion for cooking into a career.
The result is Skinny Legs & All, named after a novel by Tom Robbins. The sisters have decorated the space in clean white tones with minimalist décor – a deliberate move on their part to highlight the difference between their style and their food. “The interior is stylised and very refined, while our food is basic, simple and wholesome. You don’t really find that concept in restaurants that much; usually as the interior becomes more refined, the food becomes more sophisticated. But here I think we have a nice balance,” explains Jaime.
Neither of the sisters have any formal culinary training, but they clearly have a flair for flavours, a love of healthy, quality ingredients and the kind of passion that you can taste in every mouthful. Their menu is full of wholesome, unpretentious comfort food, like their homemade muesli bursting with nuts and fruit, a risotto which changes daily, and their lumberjack sandwich which is one of their most popular items. The sisters also insist on making all of their own condiments, including mayonnaise, strawberry jam and basil pesto, as well as all of their own juices – and you can certainly taste the difference.
Skinny Legs & All only opened earlier this year, and the past couple of months have been something of a learning curve for Jesse and Jaime. “It is one thing to love making food, it’s another thing to make money from it,” says Jaime. But based on their inviting interior, their palpable enthusiasm and the care you can taste in every one of their dishes, you can’t help feel that these two sisters may indeed be able to have their homemade cake and eat it too!
Skinny Legs & All (70 Loop Street) is open Monday to Friday from 07h00 to 16h00 and on Saturdays from 08h30 to 14h00. Contact +27 21 423 5403 or email enquiries@skinnylegsandall.co.za for more information.
The Haas Coffee Collective
This coffee shop in the Bo-Kaap may only have opened its doors earlier this year, but it has already established quite a name for itself: As the current title holder for serving South Africa’s most expensive cup of coffee. At R80 a cup (or R2,960 per kilogram!), a steaming mug of Indonesian Kopi Luwak doesn’t come cheap. But then it’s not every day that you get to partake in the subtleties of a coffee bean that has survived a journey through the intestines of civet! The Asian Palm civet, which lives in Indonesia, is partial to only the choicest, reddest coffee berries. Once eaten, the outside pulp of the berry is digested and the perfect coffee bean is excreted at the other end. It is then some poor guy’s job to collect the “discarded” beans, which are then cleaned and roasted.
It is apparently the digestive process that makes the flavour of this particular bean so sought after. “The enzymes in the civet’s stomach basically take away all of the high and low notes of the coffee, to make it the most balanced coffee in the world,” explains Glynn Venter, one of the owners of Haas.
The movie The Bucket List established Kopi Luwak as one of life’s essential experiences, and a recent segment on Carte Blanche (which identified Haas as currently the only retailer in South Africa with certified Kopi Luwak coffee) has seen the shop inundated with coffee connoisseurs looking to tick Kopi Luwak off their own personal lists. Glynn says that many come just for the bragging rights, but go away pleasantly surprised by just how enjoyable the coffee actually is.
Thanks to the buzz that currently exists around Kopi Luwak, Haas often runs out of stock, but there are still plenty of other reasons to frequent this part of the Bo-Kaap. As well as Kopi Luwak, the coffee shop also serves up other rare coffees. These include Jamaican Blue Mountain and Yemen Mocha Matari. The shop also serves up tasty titbits and has a fun, warm vibe, which is overseen by the custodial eyes of “Haas”, Glynn’s childhood toy rabbit for which the shop is named.
Haas is so much more than just a coffee shop, though, and was formed as a creative collaboration between Glynn Venter (who has a background in marketing), interior designer Francois Irvine and artist Vanessa Berlein. Francois and Vanessa run the adjacent Haas Design Collective, which sells a wonderful selection of artwork, accessories and handmade objects, with bunnies (understandably) being a recurring theme. With two additional partners, the three also run an advertising agency, and have just opened a gallery space where they plan to exhibit the work of local artists. They also have plans to work together with the local Bo-Kaap community to begin hosting a regular weekend market.
Glynn and his partners clearly have an enthusiasm for great creativity and delicious coffee, and as a result, Haas looks set to become something of a buzz word on the Cape Town social scene – and not just for its ability to help you tick another item off your bucket list!
The Haas Coffee Collective (67 Rose Street, Bo-Kaap) is open Monday to Friday from 07h00 to 17h00 and on weekends and public holidays from 08h00 to 15h00. Visit http://www.haascollective.com/ for more information.
Story by Nicky Furniss
