Guides ·Food & drink

The CBD: Eastern Food Bazaar and the Long Street strip

Eastern Food Bazaar on Longmarket Street, just off Darling in the CBD, is the single best cheap meal in Cape Town and it is not close. A food-court layout of Indian, Turkish and Chinese counters, open roughly 10:00 to 22:00 daily, halal, no alcohol, and mains from R60 to R95. Order at the counter, take a numbered ticket, sit at a communal table. The biryani, the butter chicken with naan, the dosas and the shawarma plates all land under R100 and are large. It is busy, fluorescent, chaotic and beloved by office workers, students and taxi drivers alike.

Around it, the CBD rewards a bit of walking. Royale Eatery at 279 Long Street does burgers from R110 to R145 including a serious vegetarian range and a milkshake list. Clarke's Bar & Dining on Bree Street runs weekday breakfasts around R95 and lunches under R150. Bacon on Bree does a sandwich and coffee for about R130. The Company's Garden Restaurant serves a decent plate under R120 with a mountain view and squirrels. For a R20 samoosa and a R30 coffee, the corner takeaways along Plein and Parliament Streets outperform anything on the tourist strip.

Bo-Kaap and the Cape Malay bites

Bo-Kaap is where R100 goes furthest. The corner shops along Rose Street and Chiappini Street sell samoosas at R12 to R18 each, chilli bites, pies and koesisters at R8 to R12 — the coconut-rolled Cape Malay version, best on Sunday mornings when families sell them from front steps. Three samoosas and a koesister with tea is a complete second breakfast for under R70. Atlas Trading on Wale Street is the spice shop everyone photographs, and a bag of proper masala at R40 is the best-value souvenir in the neighbourhood.

For a sit-down meal, Biesmiellah at the corner of Wale and Pentz has been running since 1974 and does akhni, curries and a bobotie plate from about R110 to R160, no alcohol served. It is comfortably under budget if you skip the extras. Nearby, the takeaway counters do half-roti rolls with mince or chicken at R60 to R80 that are among the most satisfying lunches in the city. Everything here is halal. Bring cash for the smallest shops and remember this is a residential neighbourhood, not a food court.

Gatsbys, kotas and the big-roll economy

The gatsby is the cheap-eat champion by sheer arithmetic: a foot-long roll packed with chips and a filling, R90 to R140, feeding two to four people. Split between two, that is R60 a head for more food than you can finish. Mariam's Kitchen on Long Street is the central option, doing masala steak, chicken and calamari versions with peri-peri and atchar. Golden Dish in Athlone and Wembley Roadhouse on Belgravia Road are the ones Capetonians defend in arguments; both are a short Uber from town and worth the trip if you want the real thing.

The related economy of cheap fillers is worth knowing. A bunny chow — quarter loaf hollowed out and filled with curry — runs R70 to R110 and is a full meal. Kotas add russian sausage, cheese and chips inside a bread shell for R50 to R80. Roti rolls from any Cape Malay or Indian takeaway cost R60 to R85. Nando's, the Portuguese-South African peri-peri chicken chain that started here, does a quarter chicken with two sides for around R95 and is genuinely good rather than merely convenient.

Fish and chips on the water

Kalky's, inside Kalk Bay harbour on the False Bay coast, is a plastic-chairs, cash-only institution where hake and chips costs about R85 and calamari around R110, eaten with seagulls circling and fishing boats unloading twenty metres away. It opens daily from roughly 09:00 to 20:00 and is packed at Sunday lunch. Take the Southern Line train from Cape Town station for under R30 when it is running, or drive and use the harbour car park. Bring cash and expect to queue at the counter.

On the Atlantic side, Fish on the Rocks at the end of Harbour Road in Hout Bay sells hake and chips at about R95 and calamari at R120, in paper boxes eaten on the rocks with seals barking below. Snoekies at the Hout Bay harbour entrance is the older rival and roughly the same price. Both close around sunset. At Muizenberg, the takeaways along Beach Road do fish and chips around R90, and Empire Café above Surfer's Corner does breakfasts for R80 to R120 with the surf break in view.

Sea Point, Green Point and the Atlantic Seaboard

Regent Road in Sea Point is Cape Town's most concentrated cheap-eating strip: Lebanese, Israeli, Portuguese, Chinese and Ethiopian kitchens sitting side by side, most with mains between R80 and R140. Kleinsky's Delicatessen does a bagel with cream cheese and lox around R110 and matzo ball soup for R80. The shawarma counters do a full wrap with salads for R80 to R100. Mojo Market at number 30 is open daily until late with about 30 stalls, and you can eat well there for R100 to R140 including a beer.

Green Point offers the promenade strategy: buy a boerewors roll, a bunny chow or a takeaway from Main Road, walk to the Mouille Point lighthouse and eat looking at the sea for the cost of the food alone. Giovanni's Deliworld on Main Road does sandwiches and a hot counter at R70 to R120 and has the best deli coffee in the area at R38. Supermarket rotisserie chicken from Woolworths or Checkers at R90 to R120, with a R30 bread and a R40 salad, feeds two people on a balcony for R100 each.

Woodstock, Observatory and the student belt

Lower Main Road in Observatory is student country and priced accordingly: burgers at R90, pizzas at R95 to R130, breakfasts at R70, and a 24-hour supermarket for the after-hours emergency. The bars pour draught at R35 to R50, less than half the Camps Bay rate. Woodstock along Albert Road is more design-driven but still workable — the coffee roasteries pour a flat white at R38 to R45, and the bakeries and delis around Woodstock Exchange and Salt Circle Arcade do lunch plates at R90 to R140 on weekdays.

Two structural tricks apply everywhere in Cape Town. First, eat your big meal at lunch: kitchens on Bree, Kloof and Regent Roads run set lunch menus at R120 to R180 for dishes that cost R280 at dinner. Second, use market days — Saturday at Oranjezicht or Neighbourgoods, Friday night at Bay Harbour — where R120 to R150 buys a substantial plate plus a drink in a good setting. Between those two habits and a supermarket breakfast, eating well in Cape Town on R400 a day is entirely realistic.

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