CAPE TOWN FOOD AND WINE

Cape Town has a long history of hospitality, flavourful food, fresh local ingredients and good cooks. Our casual, outdoor lifestyle is reflected in the way we eat and entertain. No visit here is complete without enjoying a braai (barbeque) in a South African home.
Our colourful history has created a unique cuisine, which is a mixture of Eastern, European and African and the result is a spicy tasty mix of interesting flavours and dishes.

Cape by Design Tours welcomes you to the Cape of gourmet delights and invites you to do some sampling!

Cape Malay Cuisine:

The spicy food brought to the Cape by our slaves from the Far East. It can be enjoyed in several ways:

At a traditional Cape restaurant in the Bo Kaap.
In the home of an expert cook.
Cape Malay cookery course-gain insight into the aromatic and exotic world of Cape flavours and how to use them.
Shopping is half the fun - buy spices and interesting snacks at one of Cape Town’s spice meccas and sample samoosas, chilli bites, koeksusters and other spicy delicacies.

Traditional African Restaurant:

This is a culinary and entertainment experience you will never forget.
You get to sample a great variety of delicious and unusual dishes from across Africa, while you are entertained in African style by gumboot dancers, marimba music, singers and much more.

Home Braai (Barbeque)- Braaivleis means roasted or grilled meat. Braai for short:

The traditional South African way of cooking outside on a wood or charcoal fire, NEVER on a gas grill. It’s not macho, it’s too quick and the food has no flavour!

Braaivleis is much more than cooking, it’s a way of life. A braai has to take place at the home of a braaier and you gather round the fire while the food cooks. You drink well chilled beer or wine and everyone is very sociable.
This is what we cook at a braai:

Fresh fish, Boerewors (traditional sausage), chops, ribs, chicken in marinade, sosaties (curried kebabs).
Roosterbrood -bread or rolls cooked on the fire.
Pap en sous (african polenta with tomato and onion sauce), whole mealies (corn on the cob), sweet potatoe, butternut, mushrooms and many other delicious veggies.
Salads: the freshest ingredients go into our wonderful salads.
Desert- some decadent options are Cape Brandy or Malva pudding with a Mango sorbet and homemade ice cream.

Potjiekos is another great South African outdoor cooking tradition.

It is slow cooked food in a three-legged cast iron pot. Usually a stew, made with meat or seafood, vegetables and some wine. It is also a very sociable experience -to be enjoyed as the food cooks slowly and the flavours mingle.

The Setting:

Our home braai and potjiekos happens in a beautiful home in Hout Bay where you sip sundowners, enjoy wonderful sea and mountain views, while the food sizzles away right under your nose.

Seafood Curry with Sambals:

Another home cooking experience which we offer. This curry includes the freshest seafood ingredients;

Fish, calamari, octopus, prawns and mussels cooked in our unique Cape style.
Sambals accompany the meal and are small dishes of tasty treats like atchar, chutneys, pappadums, sweet bananas, chopped tomatoe and onion and fresh coriander.
To end off, cool the palate and sweeten the meal, mango and litchi sorbet, made from our local fresh fruits.
Enjoy this feast of flavours with a glass of chilled Cape white wine.

Fine Dining in Cape Town:

We know the best restaurants in town as we do regular reviews.
There’s Fusion, African, South African, Contemporary, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and many combinations of the above.

Tell us your preference and we will book you a place in even the most sought after restaurants and promise you a great gourmet experience.

Outdoor Restaurant:

A seafood experience of a lifetime.
Up the West Coast on the beach, a couple of hours from Cape Town, is a sumptuous seafood banquet cooked in the open on open fires.

Fresh fish, mussels, crayfish, calamari and prawns.
Also meat and veggie dishes like Waterblommetjiebredie (waterlily stew).
Delicious fresh bread baked in a clay oven.

Karoo Culinary Adventure:

Learn contemporary Karoo cuisine and old style country cooking in a semi- desert rural setting. It’s for beginners or gourmet cooks. You choose how long you want to stay.

Olive Growing and Tasting:

There is a natural association between the vineyard and the olive grove and in our Mediterranean Cape Climate, olive production is increasing in leaps and bounds.
We are developing an olive style, which is uniquely South African and some of our Extra Virgin Oils have won international awards.

There’s no better accompaniment to wine than an olive or olive oil tasting.

Food Markets:

Cape by Design Tours offers to take you on a wonderfully different and personal shopping experience! You get to meet local people and enjoy much sampling of delicious snacks.

In Cape Town slow food markets abound, especially on weekends.
Many are ethical and eco- friendly markets where most products are farm fresh, often organic or bio-dynamically grown.

CAPE TOWN WINE

Sun & Wine- a Good Reason to come on a Wine Tour with us!

Due to our abundant sunshine and high grape sugar content, South African wines are high in alcohol. Before you know it, you may be over the limit. So better be safe than sorry and take a tour rather than the self-drive option.

We will look after you and you won’t get into trouble with our vigilant traffic officers!

OUR WINE TOURS ARE FOR EVERYONE-FUNDIS AND BEGINNERS

STELLENBOSCH, FRANSCHHOEK AND PAARL are among the oldest wine regions in South Africa and belong to the area usually referred to as The WINELANDS. However South Africa has more than 80 wine areas and many are close to Cape Town.
In World Production we are no. 7 and our wines belong to the New World.
Our region, the Western Cape, has a Mediterranean climate that is particularly suited to producing wine. That’s why we make top class wines which have been earning rave reviews internationally for a long time.

We produce traditional as well as very innovative Wines.
Many have traditional French, Dutch and Afrikaans names like Vergelegen, Cabriere and Allesverloren. Then there are also some really unusual names like Fat Bastard, Organic Ruins,Very Sexy Shiraz and Tickled Pink.

But what’s in a name, it’s the TASTE that matters and we invite you to try.
As we said, our wine tours are for Everyone…..

For aficionados, we organise highly specialised tours.
Apart from the normal wine tastings and cellar tours, we offer:

Reserve Vintage Tasting
A Rustic Wine Drive- which means tasting in the vineyard with an expert.

For non-wine-experts who may be confused by terms such as “fat legs”, “big nose”, “flabby” and “foxy”, don’t be concerned, we’ll take you to some down to earth wine estates, where you will feel right at home.

Wine and Food is another great option.
Why not try one of these combinations:

Wine and Chocolate
Biltong, Nuts and Wine
Food and Wine Pairings
Wine and Olives or Wine and Cheeses
Brandy and Chocolate

Let us know what tickles your taste buds and we’ll make a plan.

CONSTANTIA WINELANDS - the closest Wine Route to the City

A great option for those who have limited time in Cape Town.

South Africa’s oldest wine estates are right on our doorstep.
Groot Constantia, Klein Constantia, Buitenverwachting, Uitsig and Steenberg produce excellent wines and are all open for wine tasting.

Groot Constantia, the oldest Wine Estate in the country, also offers a glimpse of our early Cape history. It has a beautiful historic Manor House in the Cape Dutch style, which is a museum. There is also the original wine cellar and the estate has gorgeous oak-lined paths and gardens for walking around in.
Jonkershuis Restaurant, in one of the original buildings, is an excellent restaurant and has many traditional and tasty South African dishes.

If you’re into something more intimate, Constantia also has some really great boutique wineries like Eagle’s Nest and Constantia Glen.

Wine in the Wild- Visit Eco-Friendly Wine Farms:

Preserving biodiversity and taking an active conservation interest in the land, is the sustainable way into the future. It means preserving nature as well as farming organically or biodynamically.
Many of our wine Farms are part of the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative, which has a commitment to preserving undeveloped eco-systems, threatened by monoculture.

Community Tourism- Giving Back to Farm Communities:

In the Winelands there is a history of alcohol abuse, lack of education and poverty. Many wine farms are seeking to address the needs of their workers by building creches and schools and by creating supportive initiatives for disavantaged local communities.

By visiting the region, buying wine and supporting local businesses, you are already making a contribution to upliftment.

I cook with Wine, sometimes I even add it to the Food”…WC Fields