Thursday evening was an unusual event in that due to work commitments on Friday for both Chantelle and myself, Jessica and Emily (both currently on holiday) needed to sleep over at Oupa and Ouma’s house, meaning that for the first time in quite a while, Chantelle and I were able to eat out by ourselves for a change. Seeing as I was in Gordon’s Bay and she was coming home from Bellville, we opted to use Somerset Mall as the arranged meeting point.
Earlier in the week Chantelle had spotted that the venerable Music Moods had shut its doors and in its place, directly across from Spur in the mall, had opened a new restaurant named Cappuccino’s. Some further digging resulting in her learning that Cappuccino’s is in fact a franchise from up country, and more importantly, it is open relatively late, meaning that the fact that we would only be getting there around 21:00 was in fact no problem at all.
In other words, Chantelle was really keen to give them a whirl.
So, with impeccable timing, the two of us arrived in a relatively short space of one another, and got to the business of enjoying a meal together.
First things first, I have to say that I love the decor of the place. Well spaced out tables, mirrors on the walls and lots of light coloured materials makes for a particularly spacious and modern feel, something which both Chantelle and I loved – a lot more open and welcoming than say the often stodgy and much darker Spur or Panarottis restaurants already operating in the mall.
Our waiter was a particularly eager lady, but very inexperienced and not yet very familiar with the menu (which makes sense seeing as the place is so new). The menu itself is worryingly large in terms of choice, think Spur I guess, with the menu design borrowing a lot of design elements from say Mugg & Bean. In fact Cappuccino’s positions itself as a Cafe and Pizzeria, which I guess gives it licence to have as large as possible offering available, but as Chantelle always points out, the problem with large menus is that the food can then seldom be fresh, nor can every single dish on the menu ever be perfected.
Anyway, we skipped starters and went straight for mains, with Chantelle ordering their beef ribs and myself going for a gorgonzola sirloin steak. Veggies and chips were the sides, and I have to say, the chips were pretty rubbish. If you’ve ever waited long enough for McDonalds chips to go cold then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about – thin, stodgy and not particularly nice. However, apart from the chips, the rest of the food was really, really good, the vegetables and steak in particular something to write home about.
All the usual suspects in terms of mainstream beer and ciders are available as expected and with mains done and our table cleared for us, we finished off with a filter coffee for me, an Americano coffee, and slice of flour-free chocolate cake for Chantelle.
Again, I thought the coffee was particularly good, as did Chantelle, though she wasn’t quite that impressed with the cake. Which is fair, because as a cake baker herself, your cake has to be pretty damn good to impress Chantelle!
(I didn’t think it was that bad, but I got what Chantelle said that flourless cake certainly had more flour than what she had expected).
Prices are inline with what you would expect to pay at a franchise family restaurant, and overall we both quite enjoyed our meal together there.
That said, I’m not sure I would eat a main meal there again though. Certainly their wood-fired pizzas seem to be very tantalising (a nice big, proper pizza oven hulks at the back), but for me I think it better makes for a particularly nice spot for a cup of coffee and something light or sweet to peck on.
Anyway, all that said, overall Cappuccino’s is certainly not a horrible restaurant to be added into Somerset Mall’s eating establishment mix, and certainly the added competition should be good for some lifting of standards from the other incumbents! :)
Related Link: http://www.cappuccinos.co.za/