𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔𝗧 𝗖𝗔𝗣𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗖𝗨𝗕𝗔 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗟𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡𝗘𝗧 𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗧𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗦 𝗜𝗧𝗦 𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗦

Riotous, unapologetic, and still the best lunch in Kalk Bay.

Recently I’ve read the online criticisms of Cape to Cuba in Kalk Bay, which mostly seem to follow the modern tradition of dining reviews as trauma narratives. Everyone, however, is entitled to their disappointment. Some people are unlucky. Some people also arrive determined to be.

I was there yesterday (Sunday), as I often am, roughly once a month. Graham and I trek all the way from Green Point, over Ou Kaapse Weg or Boyes Drive, before plunging straight down to the restaurant. His sister, Penny, joins us. I have never had a bad meal there, but I do not neutralise other people’s lived experiences (as they say in academic circles). If you had a bad meal, I’m sorry.

For us? Not a wobble, not a warning shot, not a tragic side salad. Nor for the people I eat with, who are neither shy nor forgiving when food is intemperate and ungovernable, as I was once categorised by a neighbour who looks like a moth and smells like a moth-ball.

We started, as anybody in the know would, with Cuban bread, mayo and salsa, gloriously unnecessary carbs doing exactly what carbs are meant to do (killing me softly), and a bottle of buttery Chardonnay, because life is “too short to stuff a mushroom” (take a bow, Shirley Conran). You eat the bread with your hands, rip it to pieces, dip it into the sauces. Make a mess. Don’t be pompous or genteel.

It was busy, riotous, noisy, alive. A proper room that sways, all twinkly chandeliers and candle wax, candle wax that hums a low, melancholic tune like the passing train’s whistle.

The crowd? A masala mix of South Africa in all its accents and outfits, reminding you that this is what restaurants are for: people, bonhomie, decadence, laughter, and even mishaps. Life can be gloriously messy. The man next to us knocked over a glass of water; I heard a man say “fuck” at another table (phone the police!), a woman with red hair looked like a petite poet whose books set libraries alight.

The quietest person in the room was a baby. When I saw the child, I thought, no, no, no, screaming will follow. Not a peep. I briefly wondered whether it had fallen on its head, but no, pure curiosity. Will probably turn into a wild and unfiltered adult. Good.

The view of the ocean leaves you, admittedly, speechless. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. Yesterday there was no wind, as if we were on a movie set in Venice. I’m sure I saw the ghost of a young Katharine Hepburn, the fata morgana of a sexy Othello tumbling into a canal.

The blue sky outside was heavy and low, as if you could touch it. But the interior holds its own: bright, confident, vivid, a flock of startled colours. If it were in Hollywood, all the stars would dine there. Oh look, there is Timothée Chalamet, wearing patent leather boots with a slight Cuban heel, dyed oxblood and polished to a mirror.

A question: when last were you in Sea Point? Don’t, save yourself the real trauma. Most new restaurants have generic interiors aimed at non-specific avatars staring into their mobile phones. Boring, boring. The restaurants look like the foyers of hotels in cities nobody’s ever been to. The background music is the kind they play in massage parlours on Koeberg Road, with an unhappy ending.

About Cape to Cuba: there were people complaining about the prices. If you find it expensive, go and eat at the Salvation Army, they offer discounted meals, or so I was told by someone on the Rialto.

Cape to Cuba knows what it is and doesn’t apologise. Graham, who can veer between cynicism and co-dependency, ordered the beef burger, which arrived vast and barefaced, like a sexy provocation. The buns like tanned cheeks. The beef juicy like a back-alley French kiss.

Penny ordered the tortilla de verdura, with hummus, roasted vegetables and rocket, spiked with coriander chutney, mint salsa and wrapped in a gluten-free tortilla. It was served with onion rings the size of huge bangles. If you threw it at the wall, it would boomerang back and slap you on your head.

I chose the chicken empanadas. Too lekker, better than a cracker, cool by the pool, ek sê. All meals were eaten with passion and finished with gratitude, which is how a delicious meal should end.

At our table no one pushed food around a plate, sighing. In fact, I’ve worked my way through most of the menu over time, simply delicious. Once again, I stress: I’m not robbing you of your own experience. I’m talking about myself and my friends.

By the way, I’ve seen couples in restaurants staring into the void with not a word to say to each other. Not here.

The place was clean. Thoroughly clean. The service sharp. Mary has comic timing. Max has a glint in his eye, always charming, mischievous. I’ve offered him a cabinet post when I become President one day. He wants Defence; I think he’d be better in Tourism.

I read people complain about attitudes. Give me a rude owner any day; I loathe fake smiles from people who look like bank managers. When Sea Point still had a personality, there was a steakhouse owner who chased you out with a knife if you complained about the food. The late food goddess Topsie Venter once poured a whole pot of cold soup over a difficult client and chased him out of her restaurant. I am so over polite people. If I want polite, I’ll go to church, not a restaurant.

In any case, I can only judge by repetition, and repetition has been kind. My experience has been consistently pleasurable, which in restaurants is rarer than it should be.

I’ve been exceptionally lucky to eat in top restaurants in New York, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, Manila. Cape to Cuba doesn’t pretend to be any of those places. It doesn’t need to. It feeds you well, gives you a view, pours your wine, and sends you home happier than when you arrived.

It is unpretentious. The colours are bad-mannered. It is borderline flirtatious and coquettish, which already, as I’ve mentioned, puts it ahead of half the city, specifically Sea Point once again, where dull and predictable is the name of the game (except The Greek Fisherman).

Give it another try. Or don’t. Go to Sea Point, or worse, Kloof Street, and disappear in a cloud of blandness, surrounded by trustafarians (trust fund grandees), accountants (God forbid), and those computer geeks who call themselves, I can’t even write it down, it’s so boring, computer programmers. No. Just no.

I’m sorry, one simply does not mix with anyone who works with computers or figures; it’s infra dig. Give me a mad chef, artist, extra, actor, pole dancer, whipping boy, writer, decorator, even a doctor or nurse, a street cleaner, a pet food taster. People with soul. Okay, maybe a half-day bookkeeper, but only half-day.

And no, before the conspiracy theorists warm up, I’m not related to the owner. I just like being fed properly. With presence, colour and personality. Bah!