Giuseppe's Trattoria and Cocktail Bar — Restaurant in Overstrand Local Municipality

Guiseppe’s Trattoria Gansbaai

We booked a table at Giuseppe's Trattoria in Gansbaai, 20km drive from Stanford. The reason, a sought-after Italian restaurant in Stanford was fully booked. Craving for good Italian cuisine we search google for an alternative. As we arrived a few minutes before sunset, there were a few tables outside on the sidewalk where people were seemingly enjoying themselves. Once inside the small cramped establishment, we were greeted by the very friendly waitress.

Our minds were set on antipasto to start with, then penne pasta in tomato sauce with chorizo, fettuccine Alfredo and so on. On receiving the menu we found no antipasto or pasta dishes on the menu. Just pizza and more pizza, o yes and store-bought lasagne which they were prepared to heat up. So maybe it was in the name, “trattoria” opposed to “restorante”, we were expecting the latter. In Italy, trattorias are very informal and casual, they seldom have printed menus with different courses but they will at least serve real authentic Italian cuisine.

We are a resourceful family and decided to make the best of the night, ordered pizza and cocktails, more Bahamas than Italy. We enjoyed the evening with average pizza and Long Island Ice Tea’s concocted with whatever they had available in the bar. A night out with the family is always fun no matter the circumstances.

Will I go there again? Nope. Will I recommend the “trattoria”? Nope. Was the food good? Nope.

Was the atmosphere great? Yes, around the table that is. The rest of the restaurant was quiet and...

Who would've thought? Propper Pizza Italiano in the most unexpected place! As a rural local, the one thing we crave is a takeaway pizza. So we started the long slog to narrow down the best pizza joint in the Goose(Gansbaai), for the uninitiated... After the forth sortie into unchartered and unfathomable danger we were ready to throw in the towel. At this point friend Ric intervened. "Giuseppe's!", and made some disturbing oaths about people's graves to cement his input. After our first soireè into the cute little Trattoria and our first delicious takeaway, we were sold. Crunchy thin crust, packed with all our favourite toppings and oodles of cheese crispy and runny in all the right places, we were in heaven. Even my husband, usually a stalwart for popular chicken on the run, has capitulated and joined the pizza ordering with gusto. Bravo...

To compare Giuseppe's with some place in Italy is to have it completely wrong. You couldn't be further away from Italy than here at the far south western shores of Africa. You come for a day or two and you expect Italian food from an Italian trattoria - you are in a small town where businesses have to survive with or without tourists. The locals love this place, we rely on them for good food, no matter whether it's a pizza or a burger. It's my first go-to when I need something in a hurry. Very friendly people and very warm atmosphere. (By the way, I've had some terrible food in Italy by locals, daylight robbery and blatant crooks on the tourist hotspot zones, so...