Coolest street in Cape Town

WHEN you’re looking for the coolest street in town, you probably think Long Street.

And why not? It is indisputably cool, with its boutiques, bars, restaurants and trendy crowd. But if you are looking for something different, go a little bit further up towards the mountain and explore Kloof Street, which runs from Long all the way to the exclusive residential area of Higgovale.

Kloof Street has much to offer – loads more restaurants, hair salons, quirky shops, a cinema, art galleries and more. It is an eclectic mix to say the least, starting with Mickey Dee’s at the bottom end and ending with the sensory overload that is Bombay Bicycle Club at the top.

BBC – where you get two for the price of one on selected cocktails, SAB beers and house wine every day from 4-6pm and after 10pm, and jolly nice ribs – is part of the Madame Zingara group, as are Cafe Paradiso and This Is Not A Post Office, both also in Kloof Street. Paradiso is one of my favourite places to hang out; the front garden is soft and leafy with a view of the mountain, and there is a water feature which attracts children like bees to honey.

It can be a bit annoying if, like me, you are not child-friendly (I am not crazy about dogs either, sue me) and they get a bit wild and out of control while their parents drink wine and look the other way.

There are various fabulous places on Kloof Street to have a cocktail, or two INLSA

It makes me want to go up and offer to pay the R40 or so it requires for the staff to take them away and read to them and bake cookies.

Apart from that though, it’s great, whether for breakfast, the lunch buffet or just a bottle of wine in the afternoon. Right next door is This Is Not A Post Office which, funnily enough, used to be the real post office.

Like the name says, it’s not any more. Now it’s a magical wonderland of costumes, wigs, novelty sunglasses, feathers, masks, toys, jewellery and more, all crammed into a tiny space creatively arranged for maximum impact and surprise.

The first time my friend and I went there, we ended up spending two hours playing and laughing.

Across the road from Paradiso there is a new place which has literally just opened called Jekyll & Hyde.

It’s where the Bloos Bar used to be, and I hope they do better with their modern tapas and molecular cocktails.

When I was there last week they were still a messy construction site but judging from the nice furniture they had piled against the walls it looks like it should be a good addition to the street.

On the other side of Kloof are Manna Epicure and Caffe Milano, both fab breakfast and lunch venues.

I lean more towards Milano because I am hopelessly and utterly seduced by the tarts and pastries every time I visit and cannot leave without clutching a box full of them. Other places to eat above the Camp Street intersection include Toni’s (Portuguese), Shelley’s, Melissa’s, Buzz, and Bacini’s for pizza.

Shop for speciality meats and seafood at Gardens Continental Butchery, beautiful things for your home at Lim or Loft Living, or root around in the wonderful Antiques On Kloof.

It’s got everything from plastic fruit, glassware, distressed wooden picture frames and fairy lights, to furniture, old Enid Blyton books, LP records and one of those radiogram things probably from the 1960s, much like the one my grandparents had.

I picked up two pristine Elvis fan club magazines from 1966 and 1968, and was well chuffed.

Below Camp Street you can eat Vietnamese at Saigon, better pizzas at Da Vinci’s, Thai at Yindees, sushi at Tokyo or Tong Lok, tapas and mezze at Cafe Sofia, burgers at Hudson’s, seafood at Ocean Basket, chicken at Nando’s and cheese at Mozzarella Bar.

And that’s not even everything. If you are not drinking up at Bombay Bicycle Club, and are looking for more of a loungey club vibe, go to Asoka which is noisy and smokey and crowded, but they do serve one of the best cocktails in Cape Town: the Porn Star – a delicious sweet, frothy concoction of vanilla, vodka, passion fruit and a shot of bubbly on the side.

There are two shopping centres in Kloof Street – Lifestyles on Kloof houses an Exclusive Books, a Wellness Warehouse and a two-screen Labia cinema where you can watch arty movies and various film festivals with popcorn and a glass of wine, or a vodka-spiked Slush Puppy.

The other centre has Checkers, a pharmacy and a bottle store – the unholy trinity of daily needs.

Beneath that is a great new shop called Anna Condor owned by Caspar Greeff, author of The Ayahuasca Diaries. It has been described as “a vine-entangled tale of shamans, jungles, psychedelic substances, a broken-hearted poker player, a few pretty girls (and a couple who aren’t) and several dark temples where smoking and spitting are encouraged… if only to ease access into the spirit world”. And it’s all true.

I’ve known Caspar for years and think he is completely mad, but I love him to bits. He’s a great writer and story teller, and his shop is full of amazing treasures from his travels to South America. Tell him I said hi.