It was a dystopian day when we headed to Kommetjie for lunch. Hot, dry berg winds shook the car. We took the Old Kaapse Weg, still scarred from fires.
The sky was the colour of dishwater, the sun blurred, the veld charred and blackened. On the steep roads, sirens wailed past us. There was yet another fire, somewhere, somehow, and no-one could say why.
You could smell it, not the aroma of a braai, but the devastation. We passed through Noordhoek, a blur of churches, shopping centres, drawn curtains and endless traffic lights.
But I had to get to Kommetjie, like Chekhov’s sisters longing for Moscow. Twenty years ago, I hid there for three weeks, trying to remember who I was.
I found beaches and silence. There was a lonesome man who smoked Gauloises plain; in his garden, a menagerie of western leopard toads. It was the kind of misty, isolated place where Jessica Fletcher might turn up to solve the disappearance of the local priest in Murder, She Wrote.
We arrived. It looked different. Grown up, cleaned up. Patches of gentrification but not ruined. Small cottages and walkways. New homes. Flâneurs in Panama hats. Boys with surfboards. And a wet mutt with one ear.
I’d heard through the bush telegraph about a grubbery called The Green Room. I pictured charred steaks, box wine, the smell of dagga, ageing hippies who look like Keith Richards, and my worst nightmare, potato print T-shirts.
We found The Green Room, eventually. My heart sank. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the prehistoric cry of a hadeda that triggered something. Far-off dogs barking aimlessly.
We arrived and bumped right into David East, whom I’d interviewed decades before when Mano’s opened in Green Point. He’s the owner. East has the air of a retired tennis player with a perpetual tan. The net still trembles at his stare.
He got stuck in Kommetjie during Covid, fresh from Ibiza, a Bali Ha’i with 50 beaches, where he’d DJ’d at night. Life in Kommetjie seemed a new challenge. Far from the madding crowd, he stayed.
The man who once worked with Christiaan Barnard launching posh restaurants on the western side of the peninsula now runs The Green Room. He told us what the name means. In surfing, a green room is the inside of the barrel when a wave breaks hollow.
Surfboards hang on the walls. So do rabbit-themed beer logos, courtesy of Paul Mowat, the local brewer and previous owner
But there’s a theatrical meaning too. A man who loved the stage once owned the place and, for him, the name referenced the backstage lounge where performers rest before a show.
Before East left, he said: “We’ve managed to create at least 30 jobs in the village, and we hope to create more. The sea, beach and mountains are close to our Kommetjie community. It’s a simple, beautiful old way of life out here, and we’re holding on to that.”
The décor? Countryside chic. Designed with a wink to olden seaside days. Artist Chip Snaddon, Kommetjie’s answer to Keith Haring in flip-flops, painted legendary surfer Gerry Lopez on the wall. Gerry is known as Mr Pipeline for his mastery of the Banzai Pipeline.
Surfboards hang on the walls. So do rabbit-themed beer logos, courtesy of Paul Mowat, the local brewer and previous owner. His beers are brewed and sold only in the valley: the White Rabbit, the Space Bunny and the Iron Pig. The beer doesn’t leave the valley, so thirsty acolytes flock to it, like sheep to spring water.
They roast their coffee locally, five minutes from the shop, by The Coffee Guy. The bread comes from Scarborough, a refuge filled with birds and gastronomes just around the corner.
Chef Wayne Riley, with Italian roots and fisherman’s hands, is a local with sea salt in his blood. He’s been cooking for 25 years.
He forages. He’s befriended local fishers. His food is seasonal. The specials board changes daily. Fresh mussels in white wine. Peri-peri prawns. Ceviche. Brisket tacos. Osso buco. Oxtail. In summer, lime and tequila. In winter, bone and marrow.
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Riley has also developed a new taco: prawns marinated in a jar with green chilli, tequila, lime and coriander, brought to the table for you to build your own. We ordered plump free-range chicken, soft and buttery, and crispy Eisbein baked in German style, to perfection. The portions were so large that we took half home.
The waiter was young. He said he loved his dog more than the sea. His dog sleeps in his bed every night. I didn’t ask if it had one ear.
Outside, the wind had calmed. We drove slowly through the village. There was that wet hound again, standing on the corner like a warning or a welcome. I waved. He looked old, happy. We’ll be back.
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