Codfather Seafood & Sushi — Restaurant in Camps Bay

The Codfather in Cape Town's suburb Camps Bay was opened in 1998 and has since then become one of the most visited seafood & sushi restaurants in the area. We came across this culinary gem rather by chance - the Codfather does not advertise.

You won't find any menus at the Codfather - the concept is based on the selection of the freshly caught fish of the day. If you decide on sushi, you take a seat in the front dining room and sit down at the conveyor belt. As in many Sushi Bars worldwide, the cooks put ready plates (which are priced differently depending on their colour) on the conveyor belt and the guests take away what they like.

If, like us, you want to choose something freshly caught from the display cases, one of the experienced waiters at Codfather will take you by the hand and give you detailed advice on your choice. In addition to the various types of lobster & shrimp, you will always find octopus, tuna, mackerel, sardines, gilthead, salmon, swordfish and much more.

After we had decided, we had to specify how our seafood should be prepared - raw, fried, boiled or grilled. We decided on grilled, ordering the prawns well done and the tuna steaks medium rare. When the plates arrived there was a shock, because everything was prepared with BBQ grill seasoning salt throughout. The beautiful freshly caught tuna as well as the fine shrimp - well, we ate it anyway, but there was hardly anything left to taste of the freshness or aroma of the shrimp.

To make up for this extreme taste experience we distracted ourselves towards the end with a crème brûlée and a classic African "Malva Poeding".

The service at Codfather was friendly and fast throughout and the atmosphere in the restaurant was cheerful. Even in the upscale Camps Bay the prices are quite high compared to other restaurants, but most visitors don't seem to mind - it is still a hip restaurant.

Basically, I enjoyed my visit, but what disturbed me culinary at the Codfather, or generally in Cape Town, is the "Braai" BBQ spiced salt, which is popular in Africa. The South Africans sprinkle this extremely strong, smoke-flavoured spice in rough quantities over everything grilled - whether it is a slice of freshly caught tuna, shrimps, a dry-aged steak or even lobster - always with it.

So, if you're a guest in a grill restaurant or a private Braai invitation, make sure you keep an eye on the spices to be able to intervene if necessary - it was a real shame about the fish.

One more thing - you should definitely book in advance in this restaurant, because it is highly frequented, have fun trying it out.

Feel free to follow my Google Maps profile, check out my other reviews and be sure to visit...

Was it worth it? No Comparison? Ocean Basket Cod Father How much? R2400 Great for Tourists? No Great for locals? No Is it a memorable experience? No

Reasons: Giving people choice : we walked in when the restaurant was fairly quiet, I was pretty surprised that we were not put near a table facing the ocean although there were tables available. For context, the lady at the front explicity chose the tables for us. Not good, give people a choice.

Bread. Yep, bread, other tables got theirs, we did not... I found that very strange, that our meals arrived before the complimentary bread did. Perhaps for the same reason as not giving us a choice of table

Menu, don't expect to see prices, don't expect to have an idea of what you will pay, don't expect anything besides prices of sushi plates with mediocre tasting and sized sushi. The menu is meh, at best, when you go weigh the fish, I realised that the person doing the weighing is very fast...I wonder why?

Ocean Basket, taste is King, in this business... Especially near camps bay facing the ocean. The butter sauce and garlic sauce were not enough, the rice was bland and the chips portion relative to the meal size and price was not enough. Look at the pictures vs the price

Overall price, yes, price...😂🤣 Is it price? Hmmm, this is why I do not recommend tourist visit here. I travel alot, and nothing is more irritating than feeling robbed. Yes, Camps Bay restaurants in general are expensive, but this takes it up a notch. The restaurant is not even on the beach, the tables are stacked on top of each... Ahhh, why am I explaining!!!

Do I have anything nice to say about this place, I actually did, except, they added R10 to a donation scheme to the bill without even asking you first, it's just added. Now, is there anything wrong with donations no, but I find it immoral to force it on people. This is by far, worse than KFC... At least they ask.

Oh, one last thing, if you are disabled (can't walk) consider another restaurant, there's a single entry and exit that consists of a staircase. I mean, unless there's...

Update: revised downwards from 4 to 3 as quite confident we picked up food poisoning from here.

The food here tasted great. I gave it 4 overall as it is very expensive for cape town and the service is not very impressive.

We went to the sushi bar to pick sushi as a starter. The quality of the fish was pretty good, not at Japan levels but a good version. (4/5)

We ordered slipper lobster, tuna, kingklip for the main. The kingklip was very impressive, incredible taste and texture (5/5). The tuna was good - good as expected (4/5). The lobster was also tasty but also twice the price of the other two cuts (4/5)

The sides of rice, vegetables and chips were good. I thought chips were 4/5 but my partner thinks 5/5. They were thick cut which was good.

The vegetables were great. Would say 4/5

The sauces were pretty good but I can't eat butter so couldn't have two sauces.. Of the other two one was good but sweet, so a bit unusual to have with fish. The other was extremely spicy but spice without interesting flavour. Luckily the fish was tasty enough so I went without sauce and was fine.

The price is expensive. I see some people complained about not knowing the price before. I guess that's fair. On a global level this price would be good in some other countries but it does stand out as high in Cape town.

For service the staff make an effort, although not extremely attentive. We didn't get bread brought to the table while others seemed to and I had to chase a few times for a second drink.

Would go back but not on this trip.

For what it's worth I preferred SeaBreeze...