The saddest of sad sack brunches - Forest Kitchen

 12 July 2026

 

FOREST KITCHEN

13 Newport Street, Gardens, Cape Town

 

It would be nice to eat well and cheaply but it ain’t necessarily so and the Forest Kitchen is a case in point. Eating breakfast there won’t require a call to your bank to increase your credit limit but it’s a deal only if food is mere fuel to you.

 

It seems to be the dog friendly in-house restaurant for a B & B type operation, to which Dinkel Bakery has moved, and the chic modernity of the accommodation clashes sharply with the unambitious menu and the execution of the food delivered to the table.

 

First off, there’s hardly any parking. The property has two parking bays, presumably for paying guests and there isn’t much parking on the street either. 

 

The first nice touch, along with a warm welcome, was a tasty dog treat for Prinses, a peanut butter cookie. She also got one to take home and she really loved it.

 

The café spaces is divided between the ground floor, as one enters, and a balcony on the first floor. The downstairs area has two tables, a display of baked goods and the kitchen, whereas upstairs you have a lounging area facing to the street, a centre section with two humongous rustic tables that take up too much space and two seats at a counter with no view. The view to the side of the balcony is of lush greenery, the eponymous forest. One could shoot a Vietnam war movie there.

 

The first impression is nice, modern and chic and we anticipated an interesting, diverse menu and well prepared, delicious food to match the visuals. What we got was deflating, a lacklustre menu no doubt aimed at paying guests, captive patrons so to speak, rather than discerning,  gourmand brunchers.

 

One isn’t spoilt for choice, that’s for damn sure. 

 

Von-Mari ordered an orange juice (smoothies weren’t available), served in a large plastic glass and it was quite clearly denatured juice with added orange (i.e. from a box), not bad but not quite a thrill a minute. 

 

I hadn’t had coffee yet and ordered a cappuccino, presented in a chunky cup and, quite bizarrely, with a table spoon instead of a teaspoon. The coffee was good but a tad too strong for my taste; Von-Mari would probably have appreciated it more than I did.

 

Von-Mari’s breakfast was the “Earth Leakage,” which promised, amongst other things, fresh avocado. She asked that a portion of scrambled eggs be added. 

 

We waited rather a long time for our food, entertained by a German language radio station on loudspeaker. Amazingly, there’s only so much pleasure to be had in gazing out over greenery while absorbing the cultural insouciance of  Schlager hits. 

 

Sometimes Von-Mari cries tears of real joy when some exquisite morsel strokes her palate. This breakfast was sad beyond human comprehension and on this occasion the tears flowed from sympathetic depression.

 

There’s restaurant standard of presentation, there’s home cook level of presentation and then there was this placement of visually unappealing things on a plate.

 

The avo wasn’t as fresh as one would expect; the addition of fresh basil was an inspired touch rather spoilt  by the failure to remove the unpalatable black bits not-so-fresh avos invariably develop. The eggs were overcooked and arrived cold.

 

Von-Mari’s meal wasn’t Instagrammable in any size, shape or form. It was the kind of thing one could easily make at home and do a much better job.

 

 

My choice was the shashuka(sic), essentially a spicy tomato soup with two poached eggs that were so overcooked, Von-Mari joked that the cook (chef can’t possibly be the appropriate honorific) poached the eggs until well done, wasn’t satisfied and cooked them some more. There would be no risk of salmonella.

 

The dish wasn’t exactly bad but it was at best workmanlike and belly filling rather than a joyous culinary experience. The two slices of toasted sourdough bread were good, though.

 

Another nice touch was a free slice of carrot cake, minus any nuts, that Von-Mari thought was a tad dry and I quite liked, though the crumb was closer to a standard, say, chocolate cake than the moistness one expects from a good carrot cake.

 

We weren’t keen on lingering over more coffee and perhaps something else from the baked goods table and kind of fled after paying the bill, which came to R256,00 before tip.

 

We saved the day with a drive around the peninsula and waffles at Tashas at the Constantia Village Shopping Centre

 

I suppose the Forest Kitchen would be fine if you lived in the neighbourhood and fancied a coffee and a pastry in a lovely environment but I can’t recommend it as a breakfast destination if the cook can’t even do the simple things well.