Cape Town Restaurants: Beluga Restaurant
The photo I have here of the entrance to the Beluga Restaurant in Cape Town does not do justice to the decor and look of this place. Although all my pictures did not come out as the place is so dimly lit that unless you use the harshest of flashes you will struggle to take photos!
The restaurant is probably one of the most famous in Cape Town, and has the honour of being rated in magazines like Conde Nast Traveller as one of the best restaurants opened in the world. It also makes a lot of the fact that anyone who is anyone visits Cape Town they will go there, be it ex President Bill Clinton or Hollywood actor.
It bills itself as a sushi bar, cafe, restaurant and bar and is a huge venue with great decor. It is in an a building that is quite hard to find, and used to be an old foundary. It must have cost a fortune to set up.
The service is friendly and reliable, and the food is fairly good. Though not amazing. The cocktails were great, we had a few trdaitional mojitios and some fruity ones.
I had vegetable tempura to start which was very good. I had ordered a Beluga Sushi Platter, but the waiter recommended a chef platter for about the same price. This was just too much and although with the exchange rate to sterling was dirt cheap, there was just too much food and I felt guilty leaving it all. But was good sushi.
The place was fairly quiet when we got there at 8pm but really filled up at 9pm, and seemed to be tourists in small parties and then large tables of locals celebrating something. So maybe it is seen as a smart and hot place to go for a special occasion locally, and it is a kind of “you must go there” for tourists. It is good though that the prices are reasonable considering how they position themselves.
Overall a good night out and I think the reason we were less raving about it was that we had an okay table, and if we had been on the upper level it would have been even better as we were a bit in the pathway.
