Mugg & Bean, Kloof Street, Cape Town

 5 May 2022

 

Mugg & Bean

Lifestyle Centre, Kloof Street, Cape Town

 

Life is cyclical in more ways than one. In 2002 Mugg & Bean was a high impact chain restaurant brand at the Lifestyle Centre that  was replaced after a few years by some other eateries, who in turn succumbed to the turning of the tides,  and today Mugg & Bean is back where it used to be.   Here is the new M & B, same as the old M & B, kind of.

 

I ended up here this morning by default rather than by design, after wandering down Kloof Street in search of food at a joint where I hadn’t recently eaten. There aren’t many. Chapter One, where Coco Oola used to be, wasn’t even open yet and Peppertree Café, which replaced Melissa’s and once looked like Melissa’s Lite, has been beautifully renovated and modernised and but is no longer open for breakfast. 

 

The style and get up of Mugg & Bean have changed over the years, as has the menu, and though it’s probably still recognisably M & B, it seems to have become slightly less chain job and more distinguished.

 

The most notable change at this outlet is that  they’ve put a long row of small tables outside on the stoep, with banquette seating  on the street side, with the more standard eet up inside. 

 

The menu is quite a bit less munificent than the days of yore and one of my favourites, the blueberry flapjack stack, seems to have been abandoned, at least as a breakfast item.  

 

There are omelettes, Benedict variations, and bagels, variations on the fry up, and healthy options, and they’re available all day.

 

I chose the sweetcorn fritter stack with bacon, avocado, roasted tomatoes and a slick of dark rye bread, and butter. (R89) It was a good plateful and quite tasty but the food arrived at my table close to room temperature. 

 

My sweet treat was a supersized blueberry muffin, with jam and grated cheese (R49) with a very substantial Americano (R34), and the muffin was actually warmer than the supposedly hot breakfast had been. Very nice, with a good crumb but a tad over-generous.  At the price and with that size, it could probably be a quite filling breakfast.

 

The espresso (R28) is a good quantity and the coffee is good.

 

The bill, before tip, came to a nicely rounded R200,00.

 

With Mugg & Bean one can rely on the brand to present what it says on the box, at a more elevated level than, for example, Wimpy or the Spur, especially when you’re far from home and the comforts of your favourite breakfast spot, yet it’s hardly my first choice anymore.  The food is decent and well-priced and the coffee is good but one can say the same thing for many places in Cape Town that are emotionally more appealing.