Folk Café in St James

 18 January 2024

 

FOLK CAFÉ 

54 Main Road, St James, Cape Town

 

The wife is still on leave and so we took the Yorkies out to St James for a little outing and late lunch at a dog friendly venue.  Folk Café in Bree Street, if these are the same folks, was a favourite, sorely missed breakfast spot.

 

The St James establishment isn’t much like the central city site and is mostly a Southern Peninsula beer garden, though there are tables inside. There is also an extensive deli section in the front part of the building. It’s right next to St James station and abuts the railway line, which is nice for trainspotters.

 

The shady beer garden is quite large and extends for pretty much the length of the property with a kids’ playground at the far end and abutting the railway line.

 

The menu is extensive and offers a few small plates (not tapas) and plant based options, but given our experience, I’d say burgers or pizza would be what you’d order in preference to the more apparently upmarket dishes.

 

From the small plate menu, the wife ordered the flash fried baby calamari and the pita plate with hummus, tzatziki and olives. My choice of light meal was Bratwurst and Bockwurst with a Brezel, organic Sauerkraut (allegedly), shaved fennel and mustard.

 

The calamari with soy glaze and ponzu mayonnaise was tasty yet almost cold on arrival and the quantity was so small one suspected that the metric ton of crisp noodles on top of it was there as disguise rather than as textural contrast.

 

The supposed pita was crisp focaccia but was quite good, the hummus was a smallish layer of very yummy red pepper hummus and plenty of standard hummus.  The olives were nicely briny and we can’t comment on the tzatziki, as we didn’t taste it.

 

The wife’s considered opinion of her meal was “decidedly average.”  I’d call it serviceable. 

 

The sausages were good, as was the Brezel but there was no Sauerkraut, only an acidic coleslaw, which complemented the protein well, but if your menu refers to Sauerkraut, you should serve Sauerkraut. 

Our afters were respectively slices of a chocolate brownie cheesecake and a gluten free almond and lemon  cake.  The cheesecake was excellent, with a light, dry texture and chocolate sweetness, but the otherwise tasty gluten free cake had a crumb that was denser than one would expect and was a tad stodgy.

The bill came to R543,00 (including two cappuccinos and a beer) before tip.

 

The service was excellent, as is the coffee, and our server was friendly and graciously tolerant of the one yapping Yorkie. In fact, several staff members made nice with a dog who, for no material reason,  wished to have no truck with them.

 

Frankly, if you’re going to eat at a beer garden, expect beer garden quality of food. It was lovely to sit under the shade in a much cooler part of Cape Town than the City Bowl and to feel like tourists in our own city, despite the frequent passing trains, and I can see myself getting plastered there on beer and Brezels on a lazy, warm day.  Having said that, there’s no compelling reason to revisit Folk Café any time soon.