Discover Cape Town’s history through food

Learn the story of South Africa through food on this unique walking tour. Cape Town has a very dynamic food culture due to its colonial roots – every dish tells us something about the city’s past. Throughout the four-hour tour, I’ll show you the city’s key landmarks and you’ll get to eat the history as we go along. It’s an immersion into South Africa’s cuisine and the locals we meet have a real passion for their dishes.

Starting in the city centre, we’ll have a briefing in a coffee shop and then walk through the Company Gardens, which were developed by the Dutch to grow fruit and vegetables. This is where we have our fynbos experience. The fynbos is a native plant species with incredible medicinal properties that’s also used to create amazing herbs. You’ll get to smell and taste them, as well as learn about how they’re used in modern cooking.

Next, we move to Bo-kaap, an area that tells the story of slavery in South Africa – many of the Malay people brought in to live here worked in the Company Gardens. Their culinary skills and ability to use spices really shaped the way we eat now as Capetonians. We’ll explore this Cape Malay cuisine at Faeeza’s Home Kitchen. Faeeza is a local lady who serves Cape Malay dishes from her little tea garden. She’s a bit of a celebrity and has hosted famous guests like Harry and Meghan – she’s even been featured on the Netflix show ‘Someone feed Phil.’

There’s a chance to learn about South Africa’s wine as we move on to Penny Noire Winebar in the inner city, which is run by Penny, one of the few black female sommeliers in the country. You’ll get to taste traditional wines and compare them to varieties made today. We’ll also stop at the oldest grape-bearing vine in the southern hemisphere which sits in the middle of Cape Town.

One of our most popular stops is at the Youngblood Gallery, which serves Afrikaans and Cape Malay food in a slick art gallery. You’ll get to try Cape Town’s national dish, the bobotie, which is made from ground beef topped with savoury custard, adapted from a Malaysian baked fish recipe. To finish we stop at a chocolatier and perhaps do some gin tasting – you definitely won’t need anything else to eat for the rest of the day!