Kahve Road in Claremont, Cape Town aims to be more than a coffee shop and a bistro, but an experience of flavourful food and coffee with a difference.
Located inside Cavendish Square, this trendy restaurant is the ideal spot for a quick coffee break or lunch break after an afternoon of shopping.
From the moment you step over the threshold, you are immersed in the soft lightening and gold embellishments that are part of the eating experience.
Their wide selection of food, coffees, teas and pâtisserie, makes this restaurant the ideal spot for any meeting or gathering.
Selection of patisseries Picture- Nathan Adams
The menu and most of the accents in the restaurant have wooden touches with their logo tastefully crafted into it. The menu appears to be finely tuned so that you get just the basics of the ingredients, but still a teaser of what will come out of the kitchen.
Kahve Road does all day breakfasts- which includes croissants, waffles and poached eggs on toast. Their café classics include artisan pies, butter chicken curry and a trio of sliders. They also offer a range of open sandwiches, salads and a cheese board if you're looking for lighter lunch options.
Flip the menu around and you have a wide selection of teas and coffees ranging from loose tea leaf- a selection of black, green and herbal tea from different origins- and cold beverages to choose from.
The loose leaf tea is served in a basket in a teapot and infused for a recommended time as indicated on a mini hourglasses.
As part of the experience, guests control how strong (or weak) they prefer their tea.
Waiter, Haydn Hemming, explained: “We serve the leaves in a basket. We have a timer. Each specific tea has a recommended time that it should be infused for. After three to five minutes you can take the basket out of the teapot and if you leave it in it’s just going to get stronger over time.
“All of our teas are single origin.”
Of course the coffee also comes with a difference- the milk is steamed to 63 degrees to allow the natural sweetness to bring out the flavour in the milk and exaggerate the coffee bean taste.
Hemming explains: “(The coffee) tends to be just a little cooler than one would expect, but because coffee was a luxury back in the day, that’s how it was supposed to be consumed, rather quickly and not sipped on for a very long time. We do things a little different around here.”
My colleague had the Malawi black tea described on the menu as robust, sweet, woody and earthy. Beautiful golden red liquor colour that blends beautifully with a little milk (R28).
I wanted to try something different and since turmeric is the wonder spice of the season, I had the turmeric thyme latte- made with coconut cream, mixed with turmeric thyme combined with perfectly textured milk (R27).
Turmeric thyme latte Picture: Megan Baadjies
I was worried that the turmeric would be a little overwhelming because of the intense smell and bright yellow colour, but it wasn’t.
It was a perfectly creamy blend with a hint of turmeric that’s anything but overpowering.
The teas and coffees Khave Road are served without sugar to bring out its flavours.
We also sampled the flat white coffee (R25), cappuccino (R27) and the red rooibos flat white (R27).
My colleague had the Pain Perdu, from the all day breakfast options, a croissant bread pudding dish with caramelised banana, served with crème anglaise, butterscotch sauce and chantilly cream (R79).
Gourmet trio of sliders with sweet potato Picture: Megan Baadjies
I had the gourmet trio of sliders from the café classics options which includes a coriander lamb with BBQ sauce, crumbed chicken with mayo and grilled spiced pineapple and harissa falafel with hummus, pickled cucumber and tzatziki (R95) with a side order of rosemary thyme sweet potato and potato (R26).
Kahve Road is a great place if you’re looking to enjoy quick light meals, but if it’s just coffee or tea you’re after, this restaurant is definitely worth the stop.