Zest Restaurant — Restaurant in Sea Point

Quick Takeaways

🍖 Delicious food — perfectly cooked springbok and fresh sides

👨‍🍳 Excellent service — professional, attentive, and friendly staff

🏙️ Great location — easy to walk to, though parking is limited

🌊 Lovely sea view — choose a front table by the open windows

💰 Fair pricing — quality matches the cost

🪑 Refined interior — elegant, clean, and modern design

🍽️ Minor service hiccups — slow food ordering and over-eager clearing

🌃 Safe area — well-lit and secure surroundings

Full Review

I attended Zest Restaurant in Cape Town for lunch and had a very pleasant experience overall.

I ordered the springbok with salad, and from walking in to walking out, the service and standards were consistently very good.

The restaurant sits on the second floor of a shopping complex, just off the main road. Parking isn’t great, but there is some on-road parking nearby, along with car parks within walking distance. If you’re staying locally, it’s a safe and comfortable walk, with well-lit streets and visible security presence throughout the area.

Inside, the interior is refined and elegant, with a high-end finish that gives a clear sense of quality and prestige. If you choose the right seats, you’ll also enjoy a pleasing sea view, as the large front windows open fully to let in the ocean breeze.

The staff were superb — polite, friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive. Their professionalism and focus on customer satisfaction really stood out.

The food was delicious and beautifully presented. My springbok was cooked perfectly, tender and full of flavour, and the side dishes complemented it well. I genuinely couldn’t fault the meal itself.

From a price perspective, it offered fair value for both quality and portion size.

There were, however, a couple of minor service issues. While the staff were excellent overall, they were a little too eager to clear plates and glasses mid-meal, which disrupted the otherwise relaxed atmosphere. It’s better practice to wait until the guest indicates they’re finished. Additionally, although I was ready to order food alongside my drink order, the waitress declined and returned later — adding an unnecessary 5–10 minute wait before the food order was taken.

That said, the first issue seems to be a common local practice, so I won’t let it affect the overall score.

All in all, Zest is a great restaurant — with quality food, professional service, a refined setting, and lovely sea views. Definitely...

Visited in May 2024 South Africa. Capetown.

We found this restaurant through reviews, and it was within walking distance of our apartment, so we decided to give it a try. The restaurant itself is beautiful - light and very cozy, with lovely views of the ocean and the sunset.

Food: The restaurant offers a Mediterranean-style menu, with a focus on wood-fired cooking. We love seafood and thought this would be a great place to try it. We started with oysters - my favorite with Asian dressing - the oysters were fresh and briny. Another starter was the crab and avocado cocktail with corn sorbet - I found the flavors a bit unbalanced, with the delicate crab being overwhelmed by the starchy corn flavor, which should have been more of a background element. The Teriyaki Salmon was stunning - the salmon was fresh and fatty, and the dressing was perfectly balanced, with a great variety of textures - a strong dish. For mains we had the lobster tail and the grilled langoustines. The lobster tail with caviar and shallot butter was perfectly cooked, and the shallot garnish was an unexpected delight. The langoustines - wow! So soft, buttery and tender - we came back a second time just for these.

Service: Service was great, from the friendly hostess to our knowledgeable waiter who was able to recommend some great dishes. Food came out in good time, drinks were refilled promptly, and the waiter was very attentive without being overbearing.

Conclusion: This is a lovely restaurant, and we ended up eating here 2 or 3 times during our stay. I would highly recommend coming here for sunset -...

The restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived, yet because we didn’t have a reservation, we were seated at a corner table — understandable at first, though it stayed empty the whole time. Throughout our visit, we were constantly stared at, which made us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. The waitress started off polite but became rude and demeaning and undermining as time went on. The issue with the waiter seemingly got worse when we asked for takeaway for some reason. Which was also strange as everything seemed a bit Upscale but she just handed up plastics and boxes, which wasn’t necessarily an issue, but another waiter even came to help us, she could also see something was off

She even asked with a nasty attitude if we were not happy with something. We were rushed immediately after finishing our meal, and after paying, she stood beside us with a tray, clearly waiting for us to leave(someone even came to take the tray from her, as though she couldn’t even go to the kitchen).

As we tried to exit, a yt couple intentionally blocked the doorway for no reason while the manager and staff stood by doing nothing. Overall, a tense, uncomfortable, and disappointing experience.

The food was okay and far from being worth such an experience, at a pricey restaurant.

Go if you are the (very obvious)...