Where to Spend a Morning in the City Bowl

Anthony’s Golden Cup has been on Loop Street a long time and does the whole job on the premises: roasting, blending and packing, from beans out of South Africa, Malawi, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

It is a counter rather than a cafe, which is the point. You go for a cup, or you go for a bag to take home, and there is not much reason to linger. Of the fifteen here it is the most purely about the coffee and the least about anything else.

Kamili means perfect in Swahili, which is a lot to name yourself after. The operator roasts its own single origins and sells them by the cup and by the bag, with a short food offering alongside rather than a full menu.

It sits on the corner where Shortmarket Street meets Long Street, which puts it in the middle of the busiest stretch of the City Bowl and makes it an easy first stop before anything else. It opens early on weekdays.

Butter does all-day breakfast on Loop Street, which in practice means breakfast is available for as long as it is open, and it is only open until the middle of the afternoon. It is the most straightforward recommendation in this guide.

It also works as somewhere to sit with a laptop for a morning without anybody minding, which is a genuinely different proposition from a cafe that wants the table back. There is a sister on Main Road in Sea Point if you are on that side.

Our Local is the original of the two, on Kloof Street, and it is built around brunch rather than around coffee. The room is filled with plants to the point where the operator describes it as a greenhouse, which is either the appeal or the reason to go elsewhere.

The cooking is home-style rather than technical, and the kitchen also sends food out for delivery. There is a seaside sister on Main Road in Sea Point.

Café Sofi is the tashas group’s room in the Longkloof precinct on Park Road, named for the founders’ mother, Sophia Electra. It opens at seven on weekdays and runs until the evening, which makes it the most flexible address in this guide.

That flexibility is the reason it is here rather than in the dinner guide. It does mornings properly, with separate food and drinks menus and enough room to sit, and it happens to also work later. Longkloof puts it a short walk above the city centre.

The Power & The Glory sits on the corner of Kloof Nek Road in Gardens and runs two lives out of one building. From seven in the morning the ground floor is a cafe, with coffee and a short food menu, and the house staple is a sticky free-range chicken mayo sandwich.

Later the upstairs room turns to cocktails, beer and wine. That duality is worth knowing in advance: come in the morning and it is a quiet corner cafe, come at ten at night and it is a different establishment entirely. This guide is about the first of those.

New York Bagels is a bakery and counter on Harrington Street that hand rolls and boils its bagels and keeps baking through the day rather than producing one morning batch. Fillings run savoury and sweet, and there are pastries and cakes made on site alongside.

It is the only bakery in this guide and the reason the Harrington Street end of town is worth the walk before nine. You can eat in or collect. The business keeps no website; its Instagram profile is where it publishes its hours and address, and that is the route our record points at.

Sonder is a small cafe at the foot of the Casa Del Sonder guesthouse on Hudson Street, the newer of the operator’s two rooms after the Observatory original. It serves coffee and pastries rather than a full kitchen.

The reason to choose it over the others nearby is the rooftop above it, which looks out over the city. The operator calls the address Bo-Kaap and also De Waterkant, depending on where you read; Hudson Street runs between the two.

Revved Up opened on Buitengracht Street in 2023 and built its name on tastings rather than on single cups. Hot chocolate came first, then iced coffee, milkshakes and croffles, each served as a flight of several rather than one.

It is the least serious room in this guide and unapologetic about it, which makes it the one to pick if the morning involves somebody who does not drink coffee. The operator recommends booking at weekends and over holidays, when it fills up.

Hemelhuijs is on Waterkant Street and does not pretend to be anything other than a daytime room. It opens at nine and closes at four on weekdays, three on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays.

There is a deli counter and a shop alongside the tables, so it works as much for picking something up as for sitting down. Of the fifteen it is the one most obviously designed for a long, slow middle of the morning.

Mozart sits on the pedestrianised stretch of Church Street, in the middle of the antique dealers, with tables set out under the trees. Being on a street with no cars on it is most of the appeal.

It is breakfast and lunch only, Monday to Saturday, and closed on Sundays. If you want to spend a morning browsing the dealers and then sitting down without moving the car, this is the address that makes that work.

Labotessa is the cafe and terrace of a small boutique hotel, opening onto Church Square, and the terrace on the cobbles is the reason to choose it. The kitchen runs daily from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.

It takes no reservations at all. Service is first come, first served, and hotel guests have priority, so arriving early matters more here than at most of the others. That is a change worth knowing if you have been told otherwise.

The Blue Café has been a cafe and deli on the same Tamboerskloof corner since 1904, under several names before this one. It buys fresh produce grown by people who live in the neighbourhood, runs accounts for regulars and delivers to their doors.

It opens at half past seven and stays open into the evening, seven days a week, which makes it the most dependable address in this guide. It is also the furthest up the hill, which is either a walk or a reason to go somewhere else.

Dos-Tea is the tea room at the Hyatt Regency on Buitengracht, and it is run as a venue in its own right rather than as a corner of a restaurant. Brewed teas are paired with pastries, sandwiches and savoury plates.

It is the only tea-led room in this guide, which is the reason it is here. It also keeps longer hours than most of the others, opening at nine and running into the evening, so it is the one entry that works as well at four as at ten.

Loading Bay has traded on Hudson Street in De Waterkant since 2007, and the eatery sits inside the store rather than beside it. It opens for breakfast and lunch seven days a week and the kitchen shuts an hour before the doors do.

The cooking has a position: grass-fed butter and tallow rather than seed oils, and sourcing from regenerative organic farms. If that is what you are looking for, there is nothing else like it in this guide.