Paternoster restaurants worth visiting

​By Roxanne Reid
You’ve spent the day exploring the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve and lighthouse, walking on the beach at Paternoster and kayaking in the sea. Now your stomach is growling. Luckily, there’s no way you’re going to go hungry in Paternoster, with 17 restaurants offering everything from pizzas and burgers to seafood and fine dining. Here are some Paternoster restaurants worth visiting. 

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One of my favourite things to do in Paternoster on South Africa's West Coast is to eat out. Remember that most Paternoster restaurants are closed one or two days a week, so check ahead and book if you want to eat at a specific place. If you prefer to take it as it comes, there’s always somewhere open for visitors on any day of the week though your choices may be limited, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays after the busy weekend.

Leeto

Leeto opened at the Strandloper Ocean Boutique Hotel in early 2018. There’s an airy lightness to the restaurant, with glass doors that fold out of the way to allow the beach and seascape in. Lounge on a sofa on the deck to enjoy a pre-meal drink and choose from tables on the deck or inside the restaurant for full shade without sacrificing the view or the sense of being in the fresh air.

​As so often the case here in Paternoster, the menu is replete with seafood and fish choices. I had seafood linguini that was richly delicious, while my carnivorous lunch partner chose Chalmar sirloin. Both desserts - Amarula crème brûlée and a lemon posset with berries – were a wonderful way to end the meal. I’d definitely go back for more fine dining next time I’m in Paternoster.

The Noisy Oyster

A chalkboard at the door of The Noisy Oyster announced, ‘We’re fully booked but fast eaters and big tippers may be considered.’ It was a fun intro to a delightfully quirky restaurant that doesn't take life too seriously. Best of all was the pebbled courtyard with fairy lights for a romantic setting.

There used to be orange, yellow and blue umbrellas to give shade in the courtyard, but those are sadly gone - sacrificed to the practicalities of providing deeper shade on hot summer days. On cooler evenings fires burn for warmth and ambience. At night it's so romantic that it’s small wonder the starters, mains and desserts of normal menus have been ditched for the more titillating ‘foreplay’, ‘intercourse’ and ‘afterglow’.

We’ve been here numerous times and always enjoyed friendly and efficient service as well as great food, from melt-in the-mouth fish to mussels and oysters, which the menu boards refer to as West Coast Viagra. If fish isn't your thing, a regular on the menu is sirloin with béarnaise sauce and mustard. Crème brûlée, chocolate marquise or cheesecake are some ways to round off your meal. This is good food in a relaxed, unpretentious atmosphere.

The Square Spoon

Another Paternoster restaurant we enjoyed was The Square Spoon, where we had lunch. Owner Louis van Staden came to chat about everything from crayfish smuggling to ways to help local people get a slice of the tourism pie. I had a delicious pear, macadamia and avo salad, with a wonderfully piquant dressing. My husband had what he called ‘a perfect prego roll’ where the steak was tender and the ciabatta freshly baked.

Service was fast and friendly and whoever plated the food had an artistic eye without being overly pernickety. Other menu items were fresh fish, mussels, oysters and prawns. For an on-the-spur-of-the-moment lunch, this was much classier and tastier than we’d expected. (PS I chuckled at the sign pointing to the ladies and gents: ‘Men to the left because women are always right!’)

Reuben’s at Abalone House

Reuben Riffel is a homegrown celebrity chef, with TV appearances and recipe books already tucked under his belt. His growing string of fine-dining restaurants includes one at the five-star Abalone House boutique hotel in Paternoster. You can sit inside the elegant restaurant with its plush pink chairs (see the pic in the intro) or in a more informal setting on the deck overlooking the sea. The evening we ate on the deck in our wicker chairs was fairly nippy so the see-through blinds remained down, but I could imagine how radiant it would be in high summer, when the setting sun turns the sea pink.

The menu is small, with a handful of choices for each course. Starters included goat’s cheese soufflé, chicken livers and salads. We chose a succulent lamb shank served on mash for our main. Pork belly, rib eye steak and linefish were among the other choices. For dessert we shared a malva pudding with crème anglaise and granadilla sorbet, the granadilla giving the sweet pud a nice tang and lifting it above the ordinary. Crème brulee, chocolate truffles and cheeses also appeared on the dessert menu.

Voorstrandt

The Voorstrandt restaurant is slap-bang on the beach. The green corrugated iron building with its red roof has been there a long time, having started life as a private home. It alone seems to have escaped the developers’ rule that buildings in Paternoster should be white and designed in ‘Cape coast’ style. As with many Paternoster restaurants, menu choices are largely of the seafood variety, though fillet, burgers and deep-fried chicken also make an appearance.

We enjoyed our calamari and chips, but it was the view and ambience that were spectacular. We were early enough to watch the sunset over the bay while three young children played on rowing boats pulled up on the sand, just an arm’s reach away from mom and dad. A dog that adopted us on the beach earlier that day reappeared to make friends with the children and a whole deckful of people.

Skatkis

The best thing by far about Skatkis restaurant at the Paternoster Lodge is the view from the balcony. It looks out to sea over the beach where colourful boats go out and come back from fishing. Watch the beach activity, listen to the seagulls and spy on the locals walking past on the street below.

Breakfast is my favourite meal here, either for the fresh fruit, granola and yoghurt served in a glass as if it were a cocktail or for the vegetarian omelette with sautéed mushrooms, onions and peppadews for piquancy.

The lunch and dinner menus include seafood – from simple hake and chips to full seafood platters – as well as burgers, steak and chicken. The main part of the restaurant (inside) is fairly soulless, so try to get a table on the balcony; it’s worth booking ahead to get a spot there.

Wolfgat

Chef Kobus van der Merwe is a forager who loves nothing more than creating Strandveld food using plants that have adapted to the harsh coastal conditions. For instance, his menus include edible succulents, seaweed and other plants that complement seafood.

Wolfgat offers a seven-course tasting menu on Wed to Sun lunch, Fri & Sat evenings, seating about 20 people for what he calls a two-and-a-half-hour ‘eating journey’. He doesn’t want to offer it more often or to more people because he wants to keep the harvesting of these plants sustainable. ‘That’s why I won’t use corms or tubers where you have to use the whole plant, just ones you can harvest and will regrow,’ he said.

He has developed his menu ideas through research and experimentation, reading old recipe books, and chatting to old people and botanists, anyone he can buttonhole to talk about his passion. ‘And I’m a danger to myself when I’m driving because I can’t keep my eyes on the road,’ he admits.

​He used to operate at Oep ve Koep but Wolfgat is a much better space, with gorgeous views out to sea. The building, about 130 years old, lies above a series of calcrete chambers that were most recently occupied 2000 years ago by Khoikhoi, who ate the same kind of foods he now serves, from plants to seafood.

I haven’t tasted the food at Wolfgat but Kobus insists he’s striving to make it delicious. ‘It may be a new taste adventure so you need to have an open mind, but we’re not making Fear Factor food here,’ he quipped.

Given the amount of media coverage this restaurant has been getting, and the number of accolades it has picked up, bookings are essential. In February 2019, Wolfgat was declared Restaurant of the Year in the World Restaurant Awards, having already won the Off-Map Destination category.

Gaaitjie

A few years ago when Jaco Kruger was the new chef at Gaaitjie, we’d been hoping to sample his food. But luck wasn’t on our side; it’s closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which were the days we were in town. But we ran into Jaco at the Panty Bar at the Paternoster Hotel and got chatting, discovering that he’s a Joburger who worked at both the Saxon Hotel and the Cape Grace. And we vowed to make sure we ate here the next time we visited Paternoster.

Turns out it was worth waiting for.

The simple whitewashed old cottage is right on the rocks next to the sea so the views are superb. We enjoyed watching kids and dogs playing on the beach, boats coming in with their catch. The menu includes seafood as well as guest appearances by beef and lamb for those who don’t eat fish.

My Asian chicken salad was delicious, the Norwegian salmon served with a delicate orange and fennel sauce that was so good I asked for a spoon so I didn't waste a drop. And the chocolate crème brûlée was a triumph. Another restaurant to return to. 

Other Paternoster restaurants

Other places we didn’t have time (or the capacity!) to try include Benguela Blue, the Paternoster Hotel, Blikkie Pizzeria (always busy and offering lots of pizza variants, as well as hake and chips, burgers), On the Rocks (on the beach near the fish market, buy your fish and slap chips in a box and eat them at picnic benches in the open air) and De See Kat (sushi, seafood, lamb curry and a truly spectacular view of the whole sweep of Paternoster beach).

There are also two restaurants at the new Paternoster Crayfish Wharf development at the old fish factory. They are Sea & Spice and The Hungry Monk. You'll find anything from seafood to burgers and tapas; The Hungry Monk also does a Sunday roast.

Amazing to think that if you visit Paternoster you could have two meals a day, each at a different restaurant, and it would take you more than a week to enjoy all that this little town has to offer.

Note: We paid in full for all our meals. Be aware that rock lobster (crayfish) is now on the red (i.e. don't buy) list of the SA Sustainable Seafood Initiative because stocks are so low they're unsustainable. So even if you see people selling them on the side of the road in Paternoster, don't expect to find them on the menus of ethical restaurants. Resist the urge to buy them on the side of the road and give wild stocks a chance to replenish.

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