Five reasons we’re loving … Marble Cape Town

The Currency team know a good restaurant when we eat at one. We did just that at Marble Cape Town (don’t get the Joburgers started on how it was theirs first) and here’s what we think are its highlights …

The building

One of the oldest buildings at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront has been given a makeover, and you’ll find the city’s own Marble restaurant on its rooftop. Formerly home to the South African Maritime Museum, the Union Castle Building was designed, in part, by Sir Herbert Baker and built just over a century ago for the Union Castle Mail Steamship Company.

Its imposing double-storey edifice has emerged from a lengthy restoration looking friendlier, and while the small shopping mall on street level disappointingly pays no architectural homage to the historic building in which it’s housed, look up to its rooftop and a more compelling story unfolds. It’s lined with outdoor umbrellas, their playful blue-and-white undersides patterned in a nod to the nearby ocean. Walk to the building’s south side, and a newly-installed glass elevator, much like that owned by Willy Wonka, whisks one up to a world of elevated culinary delights.

Showstopper views for days

Given its centrality within the V&A Waterfront, you’d expect the views from Marble to be predictable. They’re anything but – offering unexpected vistas and unusual perspectives over and between neighbouring buildings, both towards the working harbour and Table Mountain. A wrap-around patio makes the most of these panoramas, and it’s here that said umbrellas offer respite from the sun, regardless of its direction. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls enclose the restaurant, not only inviting views in, but flooding the interior with natural light.

That ceiling!

Ask us what we love most about interior director Irene Kyriacou – and Redecco’s – interiors, and we’ll wax lyrical about the innovative ceiling, a rippled stainless-steel installation. In the most mesmerising of ways, it references shimmering light on the harbour’s waters, and it’s beautiful.

Look about, and the ceiling is complemented by a nuanced and textured palette of browns, creams and Delft-like blues. They, in turn, are offset by bespoke pieces and installations by South African designers including Thabisa Mjo of Mash T and Casamento. Viewed as a whole, Marble’s interiors are sophisticated and stylish, as suited to power lunches as they are to romantic dinners.

The seafood

For close on a decade Marble’s Joburg counterpart has not only been a solid fixture on the Gauteng foodie scene but a repeat destination for those in search of both local and international aged meat cuts. You might then expect Marble 2.0 to be all about its meat. You’d be wrong. Taking advantage of the restaurant’s proximity to daily fishing fleets, head chef Matt van Niekerk has populated his menu with a shoal of seafood dishes.

Our favourite – and one you won’t want to miss – is the tuna starter, a near-carpaccio-style sliver, seared (almost by association) over hot coals, before being plated with egg, avocado and an all-important chilli crunch. While snoek paté and pickled fish pay homage to the city’s Cape Malay culinary heritage, there’s also octopus, prawns, gamefish, salmon, line fish and mussel paella on offer. So fresh they smack of sea, most – en route to your table – are cooked in wood-fired ovens or grilled on jospers in Marble’s open kitchen.

That granadilla lolly to make you jolly!

While all six of Marble’s desserts deserve a mention (hello, key lime pie!), it’s the Granadilla Lolly to Make You Jolly alone that is testimony to Marble’s sense of place. A quintessentially Capetonian treat for anyone who’s spent days on the city’s beaches in the summer months, the granadilla-flavoured sorbet lolly has been reimagined as an ice-cream sandwich, complete with vanilla sugar cookies, sherbet and passion fruit sorbet. Playfully presented, it’s a cheeky end to any Marble meal, and one that firmly cements the restaurant’s place in Cape Town’s culinary offerings.

_{Pictures: Claire Gunn.}