Dream day: Cape vineyards

I'm late to the party as usual, but the 1st of May theme for this month's by-invitation international blog event is Dream Day. From my current perspective here in Britain, where it has been raining non-stop for weeks on end (and no end in sight) as in some kind of biblical Noah's ark type flood, thoughts turn easily to the sunny vineyards I visited last month, which do now seem a distant dream.

Is this France? No, a little corner of France in Africa, Franschhoek, where French settlers came to plant their vines ...

Since the Cape has a disproportionate share of natural beauty - oceans, vineyards, mountains, forests - and award-winning restaurants, one is spoiled for choice with dream-day material. But lets say we do a vineyard day, starting in the Constantia valley wine estates, with breakfast at the Alphen ...

under the plane trees at La Belle Café

and head out from there along the wine routes via Stellenbosch to La Motte in a setting made of dreams

for lunch in the Pierneef restaurant

and a wander round the art gallery and farm shop before tea in this peaceful spot on the lawns 

At sunset we could drive down the road to Le Quartier Français for dinner with a view to the sculpture garden

(Le Quartier Français has been in the world's top 50 restaurants list for years, as well as best restaurant in Africa and the Middle East)

and much later, since it's still warm outside, head back to Constantia Uitsig for dessert on the terrace

All photographs taken by me on dream days in April 2012

Coffee continued

A few more of my favourite Cape Town places for drinking coffee or casual eating ...

La Petite Tarte is a little gem with tables fronting onto a steep cobbled street in the old De Waterkant area of town.

Actually tea, not coffee, is the thing to have here - they serve a range of Mariage Frères exotic teas in beautiful iron pots and mismatched teacups ...

The menu changes daily but the French tarts, croque monsieur and chicken pie are the fixtures that everyone loves ... 

and their carrot cake is possibly the best I've had in my life. 

which is why I was excited to find owners Johan de Villiers and Len Straw's recipe book Once Upon a Chicken Pie on Amazon, with almost all these recipes ...

La Petite Tarte is in the old Malay Quarter of the city ... 

... where I get my post-tarte fix of African nostalgia via art and artefacts in shops like Africa Nova

    pics in this collage via www.africanova.co.za

A short drive around the mountain gets you to High Tea, tucked away in a courtyard between some shops. 

It's behind a busy road, but by putting in a couple of simple fountains, roses and lavender in between gravel pathways, the owners have created a little oasis of calm ...

Home-made cakes, quiches, salads and relaxation are on the menu here

and conveniently close by some of the nicest home interior shops I know

Not far away, the Orchid Café occupies some unused space in an unused cement courtyard behind a shop. With some bougainvillea in pots and wire hearts hung on the precast concrete walls, the space is transformed into a pretty-in-pink place you'd happily spend time in, indulging in great breakfasts, cakes and coffee.

It's all in the details ... blankets over the backs of chairs in the courtyard for an early morning breakfast (my friend Lorelle was wrapped in this one when I arrived), home-baked heart-shaped biscuits with the coffee, roses and sweet treats on the tables ...

It's the kind of thing you see everywhere in Cape Town - people who care about good food, imaginatively prepared, and creating beauty even in unpromising surroundings

... and, apparently, customers who prefer sitting down for a leisurely break with some good company over the culture of chains, fast/drive-through and drinking out of cardboard. Starbucks, Costa and Neros haven't come to Cape Town, and speaking for myself, I can't say they're missed.

Art, coffee, imagination

Living in Britain I’m always struck by the fact that coffee houses, pubs and casual restaurants are so often part of a chain (meaning they have the same menu, same décor, same … same …), and even if not, how rarely they show any real spark of difference, individuality, creativity or imagination.

Visiting Cape Town inevitably brings the point home for me – as friends tell me the newest places to go for coffee, breakfast, lunch, I wonder how I’ll fit them all in to my time, along with the old favourite places. I grab my camera, my appetite, an old friend to catch up with, and go off to marvel at the innovative spirit and endless capacity for creating beauty and interest in even the most ordinary surroundings that Capetonians are famous for …


In town, Haas Coffee Collective,  specialising in exotic and rare coffees, was one of my new finds this visit ...

You can sit outside on the pavement or in a tiny sunny courtyard at the rear (above), but the real interest is inside, where the decor is a wonderful Africa- meets-Europe eclectic mix ...

The coffee shop is partly situated inside Haas's Design Collective - a quirky, diverse gallery of pictures, paintings, new and found objects and artefacts sourced from local artists ... 

It's hard to leave this place, with piles of interesting books to read over coffee, and art-work to explore ...

Haas Coffee Collective, 67 Rose Street, Bo-Kaap
But leave one must, eventually, and since Haas is in the Bo-Kaap - a historic area on the slopes of Signal Hill above the city centre - you can work off the delish food by taking a walk up and down these steep cobbled streets ...

These brightly painted homes go back to the 17th century when the area was settled by freed slaves, mostly of Malay origin. Despite being gentrified to a large extent recently, it's still the home and cultural heart of Cape muslims.

Table Mountain (top left) and Signal Hill (centre) are the backdrops to the Bo-Kaap

You'll hear the muezzins call to prayer from the mosques in this area, and at midday the noon-day gun - the cannon that fires daily from Signal Hill, since 1806, as a time signal for ships in the harbour. And a little down the road, towards the city centre, are the sounds of drums from live musicians in Long Street and Pan-African culture in the shops and markets around Greenmarket Square ...

This is going to have to be just the first of a few posts on Cape Town eating style. Haas was selected by design magazine Wallpaper last year as one of its top 20 reasons to be in South Africa, and I can think of so many more ...

(And on a different note, since Picnik closed and with it my go-to collage facility, I was thrilled to find a brilliant tutorial from a blogger here on Something Swanky explaining how to make a collage on Picmonkey despite the fact that they don't offer this yet. I've since wasted happy hours of my life playing with pictures, unconstrained by ready-made templates - I highly recommend taking a look if you have a collage addiction).

Bare feet in the sand: Cape Town beach style

When you've come through a long northern winter and find yourself waking to a perfect late summer's day in Cape Town, the desire to feel warm sand under your bare toes becomes overwhelming ...

At Clifton beach, on the Atlantic ocean side of the peninsula, the sea is pretty freezing and the currents strong (hence not many people in the water, above). You need to go to the warm Indian ocean side for swimming and surfing beaches. But the combination of mountains, sea and beach bungalows to die for is unbeatable right here ...

With no crowds at this time of year, there's plenty of space to stake out your umbrella and get busy doing this kind of thing ...

At lunchtime we discovered a place where you can eat in style with your bare feet in the sand ...

(perfectly tender grilled calamari)

... while watching the yachts bob in the bay.

The Grand Café & Beach is the result of the kind of creativity and imagination you find everywhere in this city. A derelict corrugated iron warehouse on an unpromising bit of shore-line near Cape Town harbour was transformed into a simple venue for eating and drinking, the beach was cleared and cafe tables and chairs laid out on the sand under umbrellas.

We loved it so much we went back in the evening. Can you think of a more perfect spot than this four-poster bed with velvet cushions to get comfortable and watch the sun set over the sea ...?

What I love about this place is the informality combined with touches of luxury - kelims, chandeliers and overstuffed armchairs sit comfortably on beach sand ...

a collection of bizarre new and found objects strewn on the beach holds the attention of children free to play and explore ...

or watch the passing parade of boats, from battered old dhows floating dreamily by ... 

to sleek ocean liners steaming out of the port ...

This is Cape Town beach style and I'm mad for it ...