Best Restaurants in Cape Town: Top 3 Picks from a Foodie Traveler

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This talented chef owns several restaurants and has been able to keep The Test Kitchen on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants for the past several years in a row.

What’s his secret sauce? His ever-evolving rotating menu is based on what ingredients are in season. He first takes you on a culinary journey around the world by presenting a parade of appetizers influenced by different countries such as Ethiopia, Scotland, and Korea.

This casual experience is followed by more formal dining with globally influenced South African dishes paired with exquisite local South African wine.

Best characterized as South African with a global twist. Delicious. Flavorful. Creative. I’m going to let the photos later in the article speak for themselves.

The Dark Room

There are 2 distinct experiences.

When you first enter, you are escorted into the low-lit, cozy, and intimate Dark Room which is decorated with leather couches and plush velvet chairs.

You relax, enjoy a cocktail (or two) paired with several small bites and then move on to the Light Room for the formal multi-course tasting menu.

The decor in the Light Room is industrial-feeling with exposed brick walls and open ductwork.

The open kitchen is right next to the main dining area, making it easy to watch the talented staff put together the chef’s culinary creations.

Of course, it will not be easy to book one of the best restaurants in Cape Town.

You will need to reserve in advance on the restaurant’s website.

Reservations open at 8:30 am on the 1st of the month for the following month.

Enter the Dark Room.

Relax and travel through England, Scotland, Korea, Ethiopia, Mauritius, and India via playful delicious small bites as you relax and converse on a plush velvet chair with a cocktail in hand.

Enter the Light Room.

Get ready to be wined and dined throughout a beautifully presented 12-course tasting menu. We had the option of two wine pairings: Iconic and Gourmand.

I advise doing one each and sharing with your partner so you get to taste both. You also have the option of a tea pairing.

Amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience, great for celebrating a special occasion. The food was playful, inventive, flavorful, and well-balanced. Getting to experience little parts of the world through

Luke’s culinary creations in both the Dark and Light Room makes this dining event unlike any other. Test Kitchen is well-deserving of consistently rating as one of the best restaurants in Cape Town.

As mentioned earlier, Chef Luke owns several dining establishments.

The Pot Luck Club is considered one of the best restaurants in Cape Town. With his attention to detail and delicious flavor profiles, it is easy to see why it has become both a local and tourist favorite.

The communal potluck dinner concept revolves around “sharing” small plates. 

When we went, the menu emphasized 5 distinct flavor profiles: salty, sour, sweet, umami, and sour.

The menu also included another category called Pot Luck family favorites, which included items such as chickpea, goat cheese, & parmesan fries and fish tacos.

These global innovative dishes are always changing. The servers suggest you order 3-4 dishes per person. After jotting down your choices with pencil and paper, sit back and relax as the talented friendly staff plans out the order of your selected dishes.

The cocktails and extensive boutique wine list are quite impressive. I was excited to try a 2017 bottle of Crystallum Malabel Pinot Noir since we did not have the chance to visit the winemaker during our wine tour of pinot noir producers in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley.

Perched on the top floor of the Silo in the Old Biscuit Mill, the restaurant offers a stunning panoramic view over Woodstock.

Working with a local architect, Chef Luke was able to create an urban and hip feel to the space with wooden tables, large glass windows, and steel supports with an open kitchen in the back.

Compared to its sister restaurant, The Test Kitchen, the Pot Luck Club offers a more casual and laid-back experience.

Securing a reservation at The Pot Luck Club will be much easier than The Test Kitchen, but you will still need to book in advance. I placed my reservation about 6 weeks out, and there were still a fair amount of slots open.

They are open Mon-Sat for lunch/dinner. The Pot Luck Club also offers a spectacular brunch and bottomless bubbles on Sundays starting at 11 am.

Reserve through The Pot Luck Club’s official website.

6 distinct categories on the menu:

1. Pot Luck Family Favorites
2. Salty
3. Sweet
4. Umami
5. Sour
6. Sweet Ending

Below are the 8 dishes we tried from each category, which were all delicious:

This is a restaurant I would come back to AGAIN AND AGAIN, whereas The Test Kitchen I would visit once for a special occasion.

The dishes had creative combinations of flavors, making you crave that next bite. It was very difficult to choose only 8 dishes.

I had to scratch out a couple of choices because our server warned we may be ordering too much. I cannot wait to come back on our next trip to try their famous brunch with bottomless bubbles.

This famed Dublin-born chef owns several dining establishments in his growing restaurant empire including Chefs Warehouse & Canteen, Chefs Warehouse at Beau Constantia, Chefs Warehouse at Maison (which we visited while in Franschhoek), and Thali.

His newest additions include Jewells and Brugarol in Barcelona, Spain. Chef Tomlin is also heading up the dining programs at the luxurious Singita safari lodges.

Instead of formal tasting menus and white tablecloths, the Chefs Warehouse restaurants and Thali focus on contemporary flavorful tapas-style food for 2 that offer great value for the money.

Chef Tomlin and his head chef JP van der Haar went to India for inspiration and then came back to South Africa to create modern interpretations of Indian dishes for the Thali menu.

Best characterized as modern Indian tapas.

You will be served 8 dishes (shared between 2 people) that will take you on a flavor journey throughout all of the regions in India. These are not your traditional Indian dishes but rather modern interpretations that still respect the Indian heritage, techniques, and ingredients.

Once you taste the food, you can easily see why Thali rates as one of the best restaurants in Cape Town.

Thali’s decor is exotic and showcases bold blue and terracotta orange colors, beautifully colored mosaic tiles, and bright copper accents.

You can sit inside the restaurant or outside. I wish the weather had cooperated while we were there because I would have loved to sit outside in their outdoor courtyard.

No reservations. First come, first serve. Arrive near the opening time to try to avoid long lines.

Monday-Saturday Dinners: starting at 5pm

We arrived around 6 pm for dinner on a Monday night and were able to get right in.

I loved the fact there are no choices. There is a set menu of 8 dishes served in three courses. You sit back and relax as this colorful feast of food is presented before you.

Thali Tapas for 2 Menu:

1. Sweetcorn badji, curry leaf aioli
2. Khatti dal
3. Aloo dum
4. Lamb galouti kebab
5. Calamari balchao, piri piri, tomato & tamarind
6. Steamed linefish, chilli, saffron & coconut reduction
7. Ghee roast chicken
8. Lamb & tomato bredie

I loved the modern creative spin on Indian cuisine. Because Thali does not accept reservations, this is a great restaurant to plan for when you do not know how your travel schedule is going to go for that day.

For example, we planned to dine at Thali on the day we went cage diving with great white sharks because I was not sure what time we were going to be back.

As Chef Tomlin said, “I don’t want a restaurant that’s only for special occasions.” You can easily enjoy dining at Thali as a weekday meal, a date night out, or a celebratory event.

Great value for the money, which makes this easy to rate Thali as one of the best restaurants in Cape Town.

Cape Town truly has an up and coming foodie scene. You will be spoiled with the variety of restaurant options.

We only had a few days in Cape Town, so we had to make our restaurant selections count.

The Test Kitchen, The Pot Luck Club, and Thali did not disappoint, and we would gladly dine at all three again. I look forward to seeing what other foodie gems Cape Town produces as it continues to make its presence known on the world culinary map.

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What other Cape Town restaurants are your favorites?

Let me know in the comments below!