Bayside Landing, Camps Bay: Restaurant Review

Bayside Landing
98 Camps Bay Drive, Cape Town

Category: Fine Dining
Open for: Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner
Under review: Dinner
SA Blog recommends? Enthusiastically!

Snippet
A fire extinguisher is helpfully provided in the form of a leaky hosepipe, and don’t mind the fact that there are no grilling tools - just improvise with salad tongs. But not the ones that you bought on the street the other day, which still smell of shoe polish.

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The Kitchen at Bayside Landing
Photo by SouthAfricaBlog.com.

(See full review below.)

Price range: Low-to-Medium
Fare: Hot and sizzling meat products from across the animal kingdom, plus imitations.
This meal cost: You don’t actually have to pay.
Including tip? Yes
Including wine? Yes
Food score (out of 10): 10 (easily)
Service score (out of 10): 10
Reservations? Essential
Corkage? Not a cent

Booking Information
Tel: +27 (0) 84 465 2274, Fax: No bloody fax, typical.
Email: sean@bootsnall.com
Website: http://sean.keener.org
Also reviewed in: N/A

Review
The kitchen at Bayside Landing is fairly small, comprising the surface area of a Weber grill, but with a veritable mountain of coal out back in the shed, it never lacks the heat necessary to send the sweet incense of charred animal through the neighborhood, like a pagan rite of sacrifice.

One of this elegant establishment’s culinary innovations is that it requires you to cook your own food in the 50-knot winds howling down the Camps Bay mountainside, after rummaging around in the refrigerator for the packaged flesh of your choice.

Pork chops? Got ‘em. Burgers? Yep. Beef kebabs? Several dozen. Marinated chicken breasts? Which flavour you want? Veggie burgers? Veggie burgers galore. Fresh yellowtail from the harbour? Massive hunks of the poor, cold-blooded beasties.

A fire extinguisher is helpfully provided in the form of a leaky hosepipe, and don’t mind the fact that there are no grilling tools - just improvise with salad tongs. But not the ones that you bought on the street the other day, which still smell of shoe polish. SA Blog insider’s tip: salad tongs with shoe polish on them are flammable.

The staff at Bayside Landing, it must be said, are exceptional. Buoyant, bubbly maitre-d Sean Keener ensures that the Alpha-Male punch-ups over barbecuing techniques are kept to a bare minimum. And every time you turn around, Court “Salad Department” Ries presents you with a new plate heaped with food.

The other diners at the free-for-all (food is centralized on a single table, causing general melee) comprise the usual breezy local/expat mix. Snivelly Canadians stare at you in bafflement as you stutteringly explain your raison d’etre, and University of Chicago students, the rowdy reprobates, gobble up all the boerewors, including those who claim they don’t eat pork or beef.

Final verdict? Drop in at Bayside Landing for the surprise of your life.

Wine: Tons
Wine score (out of 5): Several dozen big ups
Wine notes: Damn, where did all of it go?