The Tides
 at 
The Bay Hotel 
near 
Cape Town, South Africa

The Tides knows its best feature—and puts it to good use. It’s the sun setting behind a curve of palm-lined beach with the sky changing colors like a god’s kaleidoscope. The south Atlantic, sometimes a blue, calm and sometimes a gray, windswept fury, struts it stuff. We dined at The Tides on an early day in April as the first winter storms arrived. Seaside, The Tides is all glass, and inside two levels double its ringside seats to nature’s extravaganza.

The extraordinary richness of South Africa’s oceans and fields—farmed and wild—underpin The Tide’s offerings. An extensive, temperature-controlled wine cellar presents the Cape’s finest wines. The cellar has, more than once, taken top honors.

My companion and I started with South-African-style tapas. Delicate calamari and toothsome octopus grilled on lemon grass wands were served with a red pepper sauce: pepper-sweet, garlic-pungent and spiked with chili. We nibbled on tiny biscuit sandwiches of smoked snoek (a salt fish), oysters with fresh mango chutney, shredded duck in mini potato baskets and smoked kudo (big spiral-horned antelope) with melon balls.

Mango ice cleared our palates before our main course of springbok—the South African gazelle that lends its name to South Africa’s cricket team. Served rare, this farm-raised springbok has a light, not too gamey, taste of venison. A dark reduction sauce made from a local Shiraz wine sets off its rich flavor. Buttery potato au gratin and crisp-cooked red, green and yellow peppers, snap peapods and baby corn added both comfort and zest.

A finale, both sweet and savory, was in order. We chose a cheese plate and a ginger-peach pastry and ice cream combo. Spun sugar topped the ginger ice cream that topped the peach tart—a flaky pastry round with vanilla cream and fresh baked peaches. With its raspberry and peach sauce swirl, we stopped just short of licking the plate. The cheese, Brie and Gorgonzola. was good, if a tad prosaic.

The sunset was long gone and the first winter rains were pelting the windows. We sat back, snug and satisfied, sipping rich espresso.

 By Kate Crawford  June 2005

LINKS WITH ATTITUDE 

The Bay Hotel's  web site.