Café Riteve

21 February 2020

CAFÉ RITEVE

88 Hatfield Street, Cape Town

Café Riteve is situated on the premises of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre and is worth a visit in its own right.   

The café is in a large, modern, open space with plenty of natural light from the large windows to Hatfield Street. The tables have black polished granite tops and the chairs are of hard, white plastic yet look like upmarket cast iron patio chairs.  One section of the space is given over to a gift shop.

If you don’t care to sit inside, there’s seating in the calm courtyard outside.

The breakfast menu is not ambitious, with muffins, the usual health option, anchovy toast, omelettes and variations on eggs. I suppose one could also order a “sarmie” if none of the dedicated breakfast items appeal. Surprisingly, there’s no breakfast bagel.

My choice was “Stuart’s Breakfast” (R90) of hash browns, scrambled egg,  roses of smoked salmon trout and cream cheese.

I don’t know who Stuart is and why this dish is named after him, but if he designed it, he did a good job and the kitchen executed perfectly. The hash browns  were  well-seasoned and at the right level of crisp; there was a ginormous mixed heap of scrambled egg and cream cheese supporting the  generous portion of good quality salmon trout. The size of the two slices of low GI  toast reminded me of the farm bread I used to eat as kid in the Karoo, though it isn’t a sourdough loaf.

Very tasty, quite filling and kosher.

The coffee is good and the service friendly and efficient. A single espresso is R16,00 and a latté is R30,00. The bill came to R136,00 without tip.

There is a bit of palaver going through security at the entrance, which will be familiar to regular flyers or visitors to government buildings in Cape Town.

It seems that Café Riteve gets busier during the course of the morning but if you go at about 08h30, when It opens it should be quite peaceful and it’s a lovely place for a simple, delicious bite, coffee and some calm contemplation over your MacBook.