The Beautiful South – a holiday in the Western Cape

A friend prone to both travel and hyperbole is wont to proclaim that there are only four truly beautiful cities in the world: Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco and Cape Town.

This thought was in my head, though not for long, as I drove in from the airport past the euphemistically nicknamed ‘Cape Flats’, a huge and motley housing estate of reclaimed wood and tin shacks, so ramshackle you’d imagine a stiff breeze would scatter them all over the motorway. The geographic location could not be better chosen if it were deliberately planned to infuse the overseas visitor with guilt and shame. It screams, as it should, “Do something!”

At this point I ought to come clean and admit that this was my first visit. For years I would not go to South Africa. I have been firmly in the anti-apartheid camp since my teens, my conscience pricked by the experience of my late uncle who had gone there to visit relatives. Uncle Jack was a Lancashire coal miner, back in pre-Thatcher days when this was a permitted occupation. An afternoon free, he asked his brother-in-law if he could organise a visit to a local mine. Underground, at the copper face, he made to shake hands with a denizen of drill, pick and shovel, a man doing the same job that he did back home. He was forcibly prevented from executing this gesture of solidarity and friendship. Why? Because the fellow face-worker happened to be black. Leaving the plane, I did what I’d tacitly promised myself in the intervening years. I bounded down the mobile steps and grasped the hand of a bewildered bus driver.

The architecture of the city centre, a blend of Cape Dutch and Imperial British, attracts the tag of ‘shabby genteel’;like an erudite old relative clad in a threadbare suit that was once haute couture. Many of the modern buildings are utilitarian, compared to, say, Perth WA, a city that’s superficially similar. But by day there’s an appealing vibrancy about the place despite the fact that the upmarket shopping has migrated to suburban precincts or to the V&A Waterfront, that audacious hotchpotch of boutiquerie, gastronomic joy and free open-air entertainment. By night the city centre seems half asleep but there is good jazz and great dining if you know where to go. A guide book is essential. Cape Town’s quintessential beauty lies in its verdant suburbs, vast expanses of sand and rocky coastline, its apogee Cape Point where legend, defying geographical fact, says the African and Indian oceans converge. Also in the dramatic sunsets made more spectacular by the looming dominance of Table Mountain, always in view from wherever – would that our own Sugar Loaf were higher! Not forgeting, of course, the hospitable climate – though it did blot its copybook by raining on our personal Christmas day parade.

At the Waterfront’s Table Bay Hotel, a cocooning experience begins the moment you hand over your car keys at the gate. The staff at this sybarite’s palace, friendly yet unobtrusive, would serve as role models for any hotel in the world. Every request is serviced with calm efficiency. Our bedroom, the acme of luxury, enjoyed a view over the quayside and it was easy to imagine the days when the quays were a hive of commercial maritime activity. We took breakfast on the terrace where we found Dublin dining’s erstwhile enfant terrible, Conrad Gallagher instructing a sous chef. He looks well, certainly more at peace with himself than the last time we saw him – handcuffed to a brace of guards! Word is, among Cape cognoscenti, that he’s already made a difference, cranking up the cuisine at the Table Bay’s Atlantic Restaurant a notch or two. At the Atlantic we enjoyed one of the best meals of the holiday. Three courses from the à la carte cost less than the meal we’d had the night before at Belthazaar, a new trendy Waterfront eaterie, and the quality was far higher. An efficient restaurant manager and a knowledgeable sommelier copper-fastened the enjoyment. Even if you are staying elsewhere I’d recommend you pop in and have breakfast at the Table Bay – so good there should be a preservation order on it.
Driving out next day we found a little gem in Kloof St. called Café Paradiso, featuring simple Cal and real Ital dishes, making best use of the fresh ingredients abundant in The Cape. Later, we took the panoramic cable car up the face of Table Mountain and went walkabout on the plateau before snuggling down with a Castle lager to watch the luminescent technicolour sunset, an unforgettable experience.
One of Cape Town’s many aesthetic gems is the Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, where you can stroll at will or, on a Sunday afternoon, enjoy a picnic at the open air concert. Don’t worry if you haven’t brought one with you – gourmet picnic boxes can be purchased in the grounds. The District 6 walking tour is also well worth doing for historical perspective. A visit to the penguin sanctuary at Boulders Bay will give as much joy to children as a theme park. Grown-ups can likewise indulge themselves in what many believe to be Cape Town’s best restaurant, at the Constantia Uitsig winery. Constantia also boasts another fine restaurant, La Colombe.
After three days, wanderlust struck. We set off early in the morning for the winelands, first north to Paarl, then swinging east through the formidable Huguenot Tunnel, to Robertson. We visited Graham Beck’s tidy winery and partook of among other things, the excelent sparklers, then had lunch at Bon Courage, after which we sampled thge ‘stickies’.
WE stayed the night at Springfield Estate as a guest of Jeanette Bruwer who, with her brother Abrie, is responsible for some of South Africa’s finest wines, all intuitively made, without the benefit (or maybe the hindrance) of formal qualifications.
After a tasting, a tour of the vineyard and a swim we set off for a sundowner at Fraai Uitzicht, a delightful hyper-boutique winery/restaurant with accommodation in the hills above the town. Axel is a meeter-and-greeter in the Martin Corbett (Chapter One) league. Marius’ cooking is topnotch: food – inspired; presentation –_up there with the best. All-in-all it didn’t take much to persuade us to stay on for dinner, particularly as we were promised a concert by a young Xhosa choir. The evening brought home the meaning of serendipity. The felicitous combination of fine food, great wine and gospel songs, against the backdrop of a dramatic sunset made for a highlight of the holiday.