Bree Street

About Bree Street

Long Street still hums, but it's always been a little bohemian, more suited to the travelling youth, which explains why the innovators and trailblazers of food have headed across to Bree Street.

Did you know? Bree Street is the new Long Street.

Quoted as being 'Cape Town's hippest street' by the Wall Street Journal, and, 'Cape Town's coolest restaurant strip' by Eat Out, it is a foodie destination far surpassing Kloof Street and Camps Bay's beachside strip when it comes to hip eateries.

Bree Street (Bree is the Afrikaans for 'wide'), which runs parallel to Buitengracht and Loop - two-up from Long Street in Cape Town's City Bowl - is a culinary hotspot due, in no small part, to a serious amount of gentrification over the last few years.

Despite this the disparity of design stores and high-end boutiques alongside car mechanics and battery centres, remains to add a necessary tarnished edge to the, otherwise, glitz and glamour of upmarket restaurants.

Cape Town makes it onto Conde Nast Traveler's Best Food Cities awards: 'there's a breezy simplicity to Cape Town's iconic eating experiences'; which is saying something, as there are only 15 cities on the list.

Bree Street is the epitome of what Cape Town has to offer, with everything from fine dining to designer bars and organic food restaurants.

It is the road's width and extraordinary architecture that has formed the backdrop to the resurgence of interest in Bree Street. The road is wider than the average street in Cape Town with huge centre islands and pavements perfect for restaurant overspill and that high street atmosphere that has become the recipe for success.

It is not only eateries that dominate. Heather Moore's Skinny laMinx is here, as is Rock Paper Scissors, Sarah Ord Interiors, Paul Smith and, Kirsten Goss and Missibaba.

Birds Café was here years ago, and whilst restaurants come and go, the bars and eateries – like Jason's Bakery, Barnet Fair Barber Shop, Brewer's & Union, Folk Coffee Anthropology, Ravish, and The General Store – are the street's signature and what draws the after-work crowd.

To explore, attend First Thursdays when galleries, museums and designer shops, including those on Bree Street, open their doors to all for free.