A Few Fun, Tasty & Lesser-Known Things to do in Cape Town!

Oh, Cape Town! Is there a city with a more beautiful skyline?

This was our second time back in Cape Town, so while Sam and I had done a few of the highlights, there was still plenty left to see, eat and do!

This time around we tacked on one week in Cape Town after our trip to Stellenbosch thinking it would be enough, and then halfway through our stay, we found ourselves trying to change our tickets to see if we could stay a bit longer! Let me tell you, it’s not every day we do that, but this place has a way of getting under your skin. Alas, the airline wanted a small fortune, so we had to bid our farewells sooner than we’d hoped, but with the clock ticking we also set out to make the most of our time in the city.

The following is a list of some of my favourite experiences from our week in Cape Town, with a focus on some fun yet under-rated activities and attractions that you may not have even known were available in the city. A few of these were certainly a surprise for me, so let’s dive right in!

Underrated Cape Town Travel Guide: What to Do, See, Eat, Drink & Experience in Cape Town, South Africa 

Get your sugar fix at Honest Chocolate

Yes, we are kicking things off with chocolate because who doesn’t have a sweet tooth?

Honest Chocolate is a small artisanal chocolate company that’s all about using organically produced ingredients and simple old-school methods to create some of the best chocolate around. We dropped by their shop on Wale Street for a chocolate tasting (and some coffee!) and we had a delicious time sampling a mix of chocolates and bonbons.

They had some unique creations with salt from the Kalahari Desert, cracked coffee beans, and Ghanaian pepper. I’ve always thought of myself as a milk chocolate person, but pure raw organic chocolate really does take things to a whole different level.

Also, their sign outside says they’re “Honestly the best” and who am I to argue with Honest Chocolate?

Address:  64A Wale Street

Do a gin tasting at Hope on Hopkins

Once we’d had some chocolate, it was time for gin! You always hear so much praise for South African wine, but why not gin? It also deserves some love and attention.

I discovered my love for gin last year while travelling in Scotland (I still can’t believe I hadn’t tried gin before that), so I was more than a little excited when I heard there was an artisanal gin distillery in Cape Town – the first one in the city to be precise.

Hope on Hopkins is located in Salt River, which is a suburb of Cape Town, and they offer fun tastings in a casual setting. In total, we sampled 4 different gins including London Dry Gin, Salt River Gin, Mediterranean Gin, and Lucy’s Last of the Summer Wines.

This last one was a limited edition summer wine-gin made by soaking end of harvest Petit Verdot grapes in a batch of their London Dry Gin, which turned out pink and just as delicious as it looked!

Hope on Hopkins opens their distillery tasting room on Saturday afternoons between 12:00 and 5:00 p.m. and they also host a Gin Experience the first Wednesday evening of every month. You can find more details about this right on their website.

Address: 7 Hopkins Street, Salt River

Eat lunch with a view at The Granary Cafe

If you’re a Capetonian then you already know the newly opened Silo Hotel is all the rage, but for the out-of-towners, this place may not yet be on your radar (or your guidebooks) and it should be!

The grain silo first opened in 1924 and for many decades it was at the heart of Cape Town’s industrial and agricultural development, but when it shut down in 2001, it sat forgotten by the waterfront…except it couldn’t be forgotten by locals because it was a giant eyesore!

Well, the former grain silo recently opened its doors again and it has undergone quite the transformation! It now houses a luxury hotel known as The Silo, The Willaston Bar, The Granary Cafe, The Silo Rooftop, and lastly, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) which is set to open in September 2017.

I missed the museum opening by just a few months, but what I did do was have lunch at The Granary Cafe and that was amazing! For starters, you get some great views of Signal Hill and the V&A Waterfront, plus the food is delicious. I ordered their salmon ceviche and also had some of Sam’s parmesan risotto and both dishes were mouthwateringly good.

And I know what you’re thinking, this place is probably outside of my budget, but you’d be wrong! Each of our meals was under $10 USD at the current exchange rate and you can’t beat the setting or the views at that price.

Address: Silo Square at the V&A Waterfront

Sample Cape Town’s diverse cuisine

If travel is my first passion, food is a close second…though that line tends to ebb and flow. Either way, these were some of my favourite restaurants and local eateries around town:

Biesmillah – Great for Cape Malay food – we had the Bobotie and Mutton Curry.

The Company’s Garden Restaurant – Nice spot for brunch right in the gardens.

The Granary Cafe – Already wrote about this one above, but you can’t go wrong with their risotto.

Eastern Food Bazaar – Good for bunny chow and other Indian dishes.

Charango – Tasty Peruvian food with a contemporary twist.

Royal Eatery – Gourmet burgers that “make your soul tingle and your dreams come true”. Their words, not mine!

Bardelli’s – All about Italian food – I loved the Puttanesca.

Scooter tour down Signal Hill

I don’t even know what to call the contraption in the photo below, but apparently that’s a scooter…it’s certainly unlike any scooter I’ve ever seen! These Swiss designed scooters are used in the Alps during their summer season, and they’ve also made a bit of a splash in South Africa with Scootours offering tours in destinations across the country.

On a rather cloudy morning, our group drove over to Table Mountain, where the plan was to do a scooter run down the side of the mountain, however, the fog was so thick that we had to adjust our plans and head over to neighbouring Signal Hill instead…not that anyone was complaining, because Table Mountain sure looked moody and daunting!

This turned out to be a hilarious tour, mostly because we were all a little wobbly on the scooters. I can’t remember the last time I set foot on a scooter, let alone rode downhill on a steep and rugged trail, so this made for some great comedy. I just remember that at one point towards the end of tour, we all felt like we had found our confidence so we were taking photos and videos of each other zooming down the hill…or so we thought. When we played the videos back over lunch, we were all hollering because we had these super adventurous faces on, but we were crawling!

Our snail’s pace aside, this was a really fun activity, and as for the videos, we just sped everything up!

Get lost in Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden

If there’s one place I would say you have to visit on your trip to Cape Town, it’s the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. I really enjoy being out in nature so I tend to visit gardens in every city I go to, and I have to say, Kirstenbosch is one of the most beautiful botanic gardens I have seen in the world!

Because it’s set on the eastern foot of Table Mountain, you have these vast gardens on a slight slope that leads your eyes up the rugged mountainside. The views seriously can’t be beat! I was apparently too distracted by the beauty of this place because I hardly snapped any photos, but Sam did capture one of me walking down this tree-lined tunnel.

Another cool feature of the garden is the Canopy Walkway, also called ‘boomslang’ meaning ‘tree snake’. This curving wooden walkway winds through the treetops, offering some amazing views. I know this isn’t necessarily an under-rated attraction in Cape Town, but it’s a little out of the way so a lot of visitors miss out on it, which is a shame. Take an Uber!

Go wine tasting in Cape Town

While in Cape Town, we got a 1-day City Sightseeing bus pass with the idea that we’d try and cover some of the harder to reach attractions in and around the city, and we did exactly that…until we saw that there was also a Wine Route!

After a week in Stellenbosch, we certainly weren’t planning on visiting any more vineyards or wineries, but that wine route was just too tempting! Off we went…

The City Sightseeing Wine Route covers 3 different wineries including Groot Constantia, Eagles’ Nest and Beau Constantia. Now, sadly we discovered this wine route pretty late in the day, so we couldn’t hit up all three wineries, but we did make it to Beau Constantia where we sampled their signature white and red “Pas de nom” which ironically means “nameless”. The story goes that they tried to name the wine after the farm manager, Japie Bronn, but he humbly declined and so the wine ended up with no name, quite literally.

We sampled 4 different wines in total while feasting on a platter of deli meats, cheeses, chutneys, and crackers. When they tried to offer us a spittoon, we politely declined, so that’s how the rest of our afternoon was spent until it was time to catch the last bus back to Cape Town.

Tour the Cape Peninsula by sidecar

So technically this isn’t something to do in Cape Town, but it’s an easy day trip from Cape Town, so I think it fits on this list.

Sam and I had done a Cape Peninsula bike tour on our first visit to Cape Town a couple of years back, but the weather had not been on our side so we felt like we missed out on some beautiful scenery. When we came back, we decided to do that trip again and this time we did it in style…aboard a sidecar!

Wind whipping our faces, our route took us to a lookout point over Muizenberg, Cape Point Nature Reserve, Simon’s Town, Boulders Beach, Chapman’s Peak, and Camps Bay. And guess what? We had nothing but blue skies and sunshine all day long!

As a heads up, Cape Sidecar Adventures also offers tours in Cape Town (if you feel like cruising around the city) and the Cape Winelands, as well as customizable tours. You can read more about our Cape Peninsula sidecar tour here.

And those are a few of my suggestions for some fun yet lesser-known things to do in Cape Town. Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a repeater who just can’t stay away from Cape Town, I think these are some great activities that are easy to sprinkle into your own itinerary, so feel free to pick and choose as you see fit. For a look at everything we did in Cape Town, there’s a video below. And say hi to Cape Town for me!

 

Any other underrated things to do in Cape Town you’d add to this list?

Your Underrated Cape Town Guide: Easy Itineraries, Hidden Corners & Delicious Detours

Build-Your-Own Day: 3 Plug-and-Play Mini Itineraries

1) “Sweet Sips & Treelined Strolls” (City Bowl + Gardens)

• Honest Chocolate tasting & cappuccino on Wale Street to start sweet.
• Wander Heritage Square and peek down quaint alleyways (festoon lights galore at dusk).
• Company’s Garden amble—squirrels, statues and that relaxed city-park hum.
• The Granary Cafe for a long, lazy lunch with those views over the V&A and Signal Hill.
• Golden-hour Boomslang Canopy Walkway at Kirstenbosch (Uber in, Uber out).

Why it works: Low transport faff, maximum flavour. You’re eating well and letting the city’s greenery do the heavy lifting.

2) “Salt River Craft Crawl” (Tastings + Street Art)

• Late morning coffee at a roastery in Woodstock.
• Hope on Hopkins tasting (Saturday afternoons) for gin with a sense of place.
• Woodstock street-art wander (murals change—embrace the treasure hunt).
• Snack stop at a market hall (look for biltong, samoosas, and pasteis de nata nods).
• Sunset amble on the Sea Point Promenade—ice-cream optional, grin inevitable.

Why it works: Compact geography, creative energy, and a perfect wind-down at the sea.

3) “Peninsula Teaser Without the Rush”

• Tea & photo stop in Kalk Bay (harbour seals often pose like models).
• Beau Constantia platter + tasting on the City Sightseeing Wine Route.
• Chapman’s Peak Drive viewpoints (bring a layer—it’s breezy!)
• Camps Bay blue-hour stroll, then back into town for dinner.

Why it works: That coastal panorama without cramming your day. Great alternative if you’ve already done a full Cape Point loop.

Neighbourhoods to Wander (Beyond the Obvious)

Woodstock & Salt River

A canvas for fresh murals, tiny design studios and pocket-sized eateries. It’s raw and real; go in daylight, stick to main arteries, and keep your eyes peeled for doors that double as art.

Don’t miss: Chocolate-gin combo day (Honest Chocolate in town + Hope on Hopkins here), plus warehouse markets on weekends.

Bo-Kaap, Beyond the Photo

Yes, the pastel houses are irresistible. Then linger: listen to midday calls to prayer, pick up spices for bobotie at a neighbourhood grocer, and eat at a family-run Cape Malay spot (Biesmiellah is a classic).

Pro tip: Go early morning for gentle light and quiet lanes.

Sea Point Promenade

Locals walking dogs, rollerbladers whizzing by, and the Atlantic flexing its moods. If you like long, easy walks with a guaranteed sunset payoff, this is your spot.

Bonus: Hire bikes or simply promenade with a gelato.

Observatory & Mowbray

Second-hand bookstores, budget eats, student cafés. Casual, eclectic, friendly.

Good for: A low-key brunch before heading to Kirstenbosch.

Kalk Bay & St James

Fishermen mending nets, brass bells on boats, and bakeries that could ruin your lunch plans. Take photos by St James beach huts, then watch harbour cats… and probably a sleepy seal.

Low-Key Viewpoints & Sunset Spots

• Signal Hill pull-offs: Mountain + sea + city twinkles. Bring a hoodie; the breeze means business.
• Bloubergstrand: Table Mountain’s “postcard silhouette” across the bay. Kite surfers add drama on windy days.
• Glen Beach rocks (next to Camps Bay): Sandy toes, granite boulders, moody clouds—cinematic even when the weather sulks.
• Lion’s Head lower contour path: No summit scramble required for wide-angle views (go in a group; dusk is gorgeous).

Tasting Notes: Chocolate vs. Gin vs. Coffee

Getting Around: What Works Best (And When)

Micro-Adventures You Can Do in 90 Minutes (or Less)

• Scoot down Signal Hill (or Table Mountain’s flank if clear)—a wobbly, wonderful laugh.
• V&A Clock Tower to Silo District slow wander—architecture glow-up + public art.
• Tide-pool dip at Saunders Rocks (calmer days) if you fancy a brisk Atlantic reset.
• Greenmarket Square detour for quick crafts, then straight to coffee.
• Boomslang loop at Kirstenbosch if you’re short on time—treetop perspective, maximum wow.

Where to Stay: Area Vibe Cheat Sheet

Pack This, Not That (Cape Town Edition)

Always in the daypack:

• Light layer + wind-breaker (Atlantic breezes + mountain moods)
• Sunglasses, SPF 30+ (even when it’s overcast)
• Reusable water bottle (fill often, stay happy)
• Power bank (your camera roll will be busy)
• Small scarf/bandana (sun, wind, and impromptu glam)

Nice add-ons:

• Collapsible tote (market finds, picnic runs)
• Microfibre towel (if you’re tide-pool curious)
• Portable cutlery set (cheese platters at Beau Constantia… just saying)

Safety & Savvy (Quick, Realistic, Helpful)

• Be situationally aware: Big-city rules apply. Keep phones/wallets zipped away when strolling.
• Use rideshares smartly: Check plate + driver name; hop in from the curb, not the street.
• Don’t leave anything in the car: Not even a jacket. Trunks included.
• Hike with company: Stick to popular routes in daylight. If hiking Lion’s Head/Table Mountain, go prepared.
• Load-shedding happens: Many cafés/hotels have backup power—ask. Carry a small torch if you’re out late.

A One-Day Foodie Crawl

Morning — Honest Chocolate tasting (yes, for breakfast) → cappuccinos next door.
Brunch — Company’s Garden Restaurant (eggs, muesli, or just cake in the shade—no judgement).
Afternoon — Hope on Hopkins gin flight + a cheese board nearby.
Late snack — Eastern Food Bazaar: bunny chow or a generous curry plate.
Dinner — The Granary Cafe (risotto for the win) or Peruvian plates at Charango.
Nightcap — Rooftop cocktail (Silo District or Bree Street), then candy-coloured city lights for dessert.

Cape Town Experiences: Quick Comparison Table

Cape Town Trip FAQ (Underrated & Practical)

Is Cape Town’s tap water safe to drink?

Yes, in most central neighbourhoods and major attractions the tap water is potable and tastes fine. We felt comfortable refilling bottles at hotels and restaurants; when in doubt (or if you’re farther afield), ask your host and carry a filter bottle.

How many days should I plan for the underrated bits you mention?

Give yourself at least three full days after you account for the classics. That’s enough to layer in chocolate + gin tastings, a Kirstenbosch wander, a seaside sunset, and one Constantia wine stop without rushing.

What’s the best way to get around to these spots—car or rideshare?

In the city core and for Kirstenbosch, rideshares (Uber/Bolt) are easy and inexpensive. For Constantia, Chapman’s Peak or a peninsula teaser, a rental car or guided/sidecar tour buys you freedom and views. We often mix: rideshares in town, car or tour for coast days.

When is the best time of day to visit Kirstenbosch and the Boomslang walkway?

Late afternoon into golden hour is magic—soft light on Table Mountain and fewer midday crowds. If you’re heat-averse, avoid the noon window on clear summer days and seek shade between garden sections.

Do I need to book tastings at Honest Chocolate and Hope on Hopkins?

For casual pop-ins, Honest Chocolate is usually fine without a booking outside peak weekend hours. Hope on Hopkins opens the tasting room on Saturdays and runs a first-Wednesday experience—those are worth booking ahead to secure a seat and flight.

Are there any dress codes or etiquette tips for the Granary Cafe/Silo spaces?

Smart-casual is perfect. It’s stylish but relaxed—think breezy dress or neat jeans/shirt. Make a lunch booking if you want window seats, and arrive a few minutes early to linger in the lobby (the building is a stunner).

Can I safely walk the Sea Point Promenade at sunset?

We loved it and joined plenty of locals doing the same. Stick to the main promenade, keep valuables tucked away, and rideshare back if your accommodation is farther than you’d like to stroll after dark.

Is load-shedding going to ruin my dinner plans?

Not if you plan around it. Many restaurants and hotels have generators or battery systems. Check schedules (your host will have an app) and aim to eat in areas that stay lively during outages. Carry a tiny torch just in case; it’s more quirky than calamitous.

We’ve already done Stellenbosch—why add Constantia?

Because it’s a completely different vibe: mountain-hanging vineyards minutes from the city, easy to fold into a half-day, and perfect if you’re car-free thanks to the City Sightseeing Wine Route. The platters and views at Beau Constantia made us very happy.

Is the Signal Hill scooter tour scary?

It’s more wobbly-fun than scary. You set your pace (we crawled and still whooped!), and guides keep the group spaced and safe. Wear closed shoes, bring a windbreaker, and be prepared to laugh at your own “speed-demon” videos later.

What should I wear for a full day that includes tastings, gardens and a coastal sunset?

Layers are your friend: breathable top, light sweater, wind-breaker, comfy sneakers or sandals with grip, and a scarf for wind/sun. Cape Town can throw you all four seasons in one day—dress like you’ll experience all of ’em.

What’s one underrated thing I shouldn’t skip if I only have time for one?

Kirstenbosch at golden hour. Even if gardens aren’t usually your thing, this one—with the mountain as a backdrop and the Boomslang bridge twisting through the treetops—feels like stepping into a living painting. Then reward yourself with chocolate or a crisp gin back in town. Balance restored.