Closer — purely vegan food, in Muizenberg

Closer, Muizenberg

'So what does Closer stand for?', I ask Michelle as she hands us the menu. We're sit­ting at a cosy table and chairs in the new (ish) café and eat­ery where items like Fairtrade cof­fee, trendy raw chocol­ate (if you haven't man­aged to sample any, you don't know what you're miss­ing!) and smooth­ies made with soy milk top the menu. And not a meat item in sight. The name has been chosen for its links to food – the closer to the source, to local, closer to the heart and stom­ach, closer to people... one could go on and read into it what one may, but the essence of the pretty café is that it is about serving up deli­cious, home-made, made now veget­arian food that nour­ishes and is sourced loc­ally as much as possible ...

I know of no other purely vegan res­taur­ants in Cape Town. It's a cour­ageous move if you con­sider that they're on the former premises of a health shop that has recently closed (or moved, I'm not sure). But if it works any­where then it will work in Muizenberg, one of the hearts of what it is to be 'arty' in Cape Town, without the arti­fice of Noordhoek.

Even the cow's milk is replaced with oat, soya and rice milk options and Michelle assures me, when I raise my eye­brows (whilst I love soya, not every­one does) that most of their cli­ents agree that their soya milk in par­tic­u­lar is creamy enough to pass for milk for those who are used to it. And after all, this is a vegan res­taur­ant, so no dairy.

It might have only been open for six months or so, but the eat­ery already has its 'loc­als' and whilst we're there Michelle dif­fid­ently greets a reg­u­lar who seats him­self in a corner. Things are a little slower in the hol­i­days, Michelle explains, but they're doing well, espe­cially in the nor­mal Muizenberg pat­tern of things. And Palmer road is a good place to be – full of char­ac­ter and nestled in amongst other equally charm­ing shops and restaurants.

I take a closer look around. The restaurant's décor is simple but effect­ive. There are ele­ments of hot pink, bright tur­qoise and demure green with a beau­ti­fully pat­terned floor. On one wall are a series of shelves on which stand vari­ous ele­ments like the cof­fee they serve up here (Bean There (local) organic and Fairtrade cof­fee), fruit, little tin cof­fee urns, books for leaf­ing through and clay pots with lids. There is a fire­place at one end to keep pat­rons warm dur­ing winter months, totally unnec­cessary on a day like the one on which we visit.

The heart of the café is a cof­fee bar on which stands a couple of delect­able look­ing cup cakes, muffins and a chocol­ate cake. There are vari­ous organic teas behind the bar arranged on a brightly painted red shelf. There's a black board rest­ing against the bar with today's spe­cials on it and a smil­ing wait­ress, who spends most of her time in the kit­chen pre­par­ing what is to be a fant­astic meal.

The menu is a won­der­ful mix of healthy and tasty meals – extrac­ted juices from orange, apple, car­rot, pine­apple, ginger and grapefruit; shakes that include cof­fee malt shake, ban-ini shake and vanilla, smooth­ies that include one called yum (oat, car­rot, apple, date, cin­na­mon & oat milk), and cocopas­sion, which as it sug­gests is coconut milk with pine­apple, papaya and pas­sion fruit.

The meals for the day on the black board are equally enti­cing – organic oats with toasted almonds, banana and rice syrup, or muesli if you're there for break­fast, bagel with fig pre­serve or with hum­mus and cucum­ber (my son would be very happy – this is favour­ite com­bin­a­tion), toasted bagel with tahini, tomato pesto, cucum­ber and olives or with grilled baby toma­toes and a series of open toasted ciabat­tas or rye with ser­i­ously delect­able toppings.

My other half orders a vegan bur­ger like no other. It com­bines falafel and auber­gine and comes with a home-made tomato sauce (noth­ing like the kind you get out of a bottle, which alludes to toma­toes but is any­thing but) which tasted incred­ible! So much so that we find ourselves attempt­ing sim­ilar a few days later, to rather dis­mal res­ults (note to con­tact Michelle and beg/borrow/steal recipe). I make my way through a won­der­ful sea­sonal raw salad with a ciabatta and hum­mus on the side, whilst sip­ping on a cup­puccino with soy milk, whilst we chat to Michelle about the res­taur­ant and the food, when she isn't busy mak­ing our meal.

We can­not res­ist a couple of raw chocol­ates for dessert. They're made with raw cacao, which is a health­ier ver­sion of the cocoa you buy in the shops, but it isn't heated bey­ond 45 degrees fahren­heit and hence retains all the good­ness that cacao prom­ises with anti-oxidants that exceed any­thing you buy in a health shop that looks like a pill. No won­der vegans look so healthy!

I have it on good author­ity that Closer's pan­cakes are worth queueing for. The café some­times does a pan­cake day where they serve up fillings like spin­ach and creamy cashew nut cheese, or banana ice-cream, maple syrup and almond – you won't be sorry.

I trawl through Closer's Facebook page and find that they have an avid fol­low­ing. As one of their reg­u­lars says – 'non-vegans won't even notice the dif­fer­ence'. And that's just it. Vegan it might be, but the food is soooo good that you're not even aware that what you're eat­ing doesn't have those things you might miss.

Whilst there, stroll along Palmer Road – it's full of little nooks and cran­nies, and inter­est­ing shops.

Address & Contact Details:
Closer is at no 42 Palmer Road, open daily between 9am and 4pm, and you can con­tact them on +27 (0)74 144‑0033.
And it's cash only, so go prepared.

More about Muizenberg:
For more about this eclectic sub­urb visit Muizenberg Attractions, where you will find addi­tional inform­a­tion on what to do in Muizenberg and where to stay. Muizenberg accom­mod­a­tion options include guest houses, bed and break­fast and self cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion includ­ing hol­i­day homes, apart­ment rent­als and suites.

Useful Links:
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