Ruby's Café and Bakery at the Pepper Club Hotel

 28 May 2024

 

RUBY’S CAFÉ & BAKERY

Pepper Club Hotel, Loop Street, Cape Town

 

The wife and I popped in for some light lunch after she’d collected a parcel from the Vlaeberg Post Office diagonally across the street.  This might be the only post office still left in central Cape Town and stepping inside was like a quantum leap into a time warp. We once had a bustling, huge, ornate, art deco Central Post Office building; now we have this dismal relic.

 

Ruby’s Café is the casual dining space of the hotel, which also has an extremely luxurious main dining room, and is situated mostly along the Pepper Street side of the building although there are some tables and counter seating on the Loop Street side too.

 

The design style is unfussy modern bistro with a whiff of old-school elegance and a cosy intimacy enhanced by the long, narrow space. There is unspectacular street view but I guess one could easily ignore that and concentrate on your lovely companion.

 

The wife was somewhat bothered by the intrusive instrumental “soothing background” music from a speaker that seemed to be directly above our heads, though it wouldn’t have served any purpose to move, as the ceiling had more than one such speaker. I could block the music, like you do in a spa treatment room, but it was too loud to create atmosphere and, if you allowed it into your mind, will grate on the nerves. Background music should be discreet, no?

 

The wife ordered BBQ pulled pork on toasted sourdough bread (R110) and I ordered the smashed avo with poached eggs on rye (R115). When the server brought the pulled pork toastie, it was, inexplicably, on brown bread. The server took it back and returned a while later with the correct dish.

 

In the meantime, we shared my meal, fortuitously served on two slices of bread. There was plenty of smooth, creamy avocado; the eggs were soft poached (the server didn’t even ask how I wanted them and that, for me is a good sign; soft poached should be the default) and the bread was perfectly toasted. It was delicious and very unctuous.

The pulled pork sandwich, on the proper sourdough, was also very tasty, succulent and with the slight sweetness of barbecue sauce.

The bill, including 4 coffees, came to R353,00 before tip.

 

The coffee was good (at R32 for a cappuccino or a latté), the service was friendly and efficient (barring the anomaly of the wrong bread) and the ambience and atmosphere of the café was pleasant.   

 

We walked through the formal dining room which is beautiful and promised ourselves we will come back to try their dinner menu in the not-too-distant future.

 

In the meanwhile, if you inexplicably find yourself in Loop Street close to the Pepper hotel during lunch-time, you can do worse than having a bite at their café.