The mysteries of Sea Point’s real estate have always been understood by those who lived or holidayed there. It was accepted that along this coastal stretch of Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard, serious money sat low in high-rises on Beach Road, where the Atlantic, with its sounds and scents, reached your window with the spray.
Or even high up on Ocean View Drive, in movie-star villas where the sea becomes the framing device for Table Mountain and Lion’s Head beyond.
Main Road, however, was another story. Yes, in the sixties and seventies it was famous for its many and varied restaurants, but the last few decades were not kind, with some buildings finding their way into B-grade gangster films. The idea of genuinely high-end hospitality on Main Road was, until recently, not green-lit.
The Sea Point-born Berman brothers, builders and property developers with the patience to assemble adjoining parcels of land and buildings on Main Road over many years, waiting for each piece to become available before knitting them into something coherent, are largely responsible for Main Road’s visible improvement.
The most recent result of that patient accumulation is La Dolce Vita, a Fellini-esque dream building that announces itself emphatically on Main Road while also wrapping around Church Street, the short connecting road opposite the iconic La Perla restaurant on Beach Road, where Gina Lollobrigida might once have been a guest.
Architectural statement
The architect behind La Dolce Vita, The Cole hotel that occupies part of it, and many of the area’s most desirable recent developments is Robert Silke, whose South Beach, Miami, inspirations and curvaceous façades are instantly recognisable.
La Dolce Vita rises from the street and its neighbours with an organic confidence that now has everyone thinking about Main Road differently. That Natasha Sideris, the restaurateur behind the beloved Tashas brand, chose this building for Arlecchino, her newest venture, and this is the clearest possible signal that the transformation of this address is real.
The Kove Collection
The Cole Boutique Hotel, the most recent addition to Paul Kovensky’s Kove Collection portfolio, has its entrance on Church Street. Sixty rooms in all – 52 rooms and eight suites, ranging from 40m2 to 70m2 – it is named, quietly and without fanfare, after Kovensky’s son. Many of Kove’s properties are named after family members and beloved pets, which speaks to the deeply personal approach to his endeavours.
Where some Kove properties have leaned into high, Hollywood-style glamour, The Cole does something more considered, with a European rather than American sensibility, an understated sophistication that manages to feel both current and timeless.
The interiors, for example, use rattan weave with its sun-drenched 1970s associations, yet in a contemporary and enduring way. Paired with high-quality timber flooring, precise joinery and a restful neutral palette that does not compete, the interiors are tastefully comfortable.
Rooms are generous by boutique hotel standards. The king beds are extra length, and the Nespresso machines and fridges stocked with complimentary beverages are welcome. An always-filled selection of in-room Wedgwood nougat bites, are very welcome too.
Excellent Bluetooth Marshall speakers sit on the console table, while the Smart TV does what you need it to. Bathrooms are large, with three types of lighting, including motion-triggered floor lights for night use.
Changing depths
One of the more unusual structural facts about The Cole is that its rooftop pool changes depth along its length, a direct consequence of the Berman brothers having assembled their site from multiple separate properties, each with its own foundation and floor level.
At ground level, The Cole Spa sits above the reception stairs as a temple might and, once inside, a staircase of cyclonic form, a Norma Desmond exit waiting to happen, takes you to the treatment rooms. Exclusive-use sauna and ice-plunge facilities are available to hotel guests on request, while a well-equipped gym completes the wellness offering.
Script, the warmly elegant lobby bar, may well be the chicest place for a meeting on the Atlantic coast. It has the quiet assurance of a room that knows what it is doing, its hanging silk lanterns gently diffusing the light. Was that Norma Desmond in the corner rehearsing her lines? “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille.” Beside Script is Boutique Marly, named after the Kove property in Camps Bay, which offers high-end clothing and accessories.
Good manners
Service at The Cole has the quality of good manners rather than performance. When this writer, having inadvertently packed his identity document in his main luggage rather than keeping it to hand at check-in, found himself momentarily stuck at reception.
The response was not a bureaucratic (and understandable) instruction to return later with the document. Instead, the offer was made to complete the check-in upstairs, in the room, once the luggage arrived. It is a small thing, but small things handled with genuine customer-focused intelligence, are what distinguish hotels that understand hospitality from those that merely practise it.
Top floor appeal
Most of the action at The Cole is concentrated on the top floor, where Figo restaurant and the rooftop pool share the elevated real estate. The pool and sun deck are reserved for hotel guests and are accessible by key card only, a sensible arrangement that Figo’s outside diners will barely notice.
Figo is cleverly designed. High internal windows frame Lion’s Head without exposing diners to the gaze of residents in surrounding apartments. The best view, however, is from the sea-facing terrace, where a table at the railing places the Atlantic directly before you and causes the surrounding buildings to fall away.
It is the kind of view that makes leaving difficult. The Figo menu has a strong Italian and broader Mediterranean orientation. Welcome snacks include broken sheets of deep-fried pasta, the sort of thing that appears simple and proves better than expected.
A fritto misto, the Venetian collection of deep-fried prawns and baby squid, is served here with preserved lemon, fennel and basil emulsion (R185), and is a good place to begin. A pizza (here called a pizzetta) topped with pepperoni, spicy ’nduja’ sausage and a thread of honey to offset pickled chilli peppers, with mozzarella and tomatoes pulling it together, is delicious (R245).
Breakfast, for hotel guests, includes beautifully executed poached eggs, good rösti and a salmon bagel with the correct ratio of cream cheese to capers. Delicious crispy kale, which disintegrates the moment it touches your tongue, is a perfect flavour and textural accompaniment to the hot smoked salmon and creamy scrambled eggs.
Promenade lifestyle
Sea Point’s Promenade and seawater swimming pool are on your doorstep. The V&A Waterfront is just seven minutes away, and the mountain, beaches, winelands and Kirstenbosch Gardens are all easily accessible.
La Dolce Vita, and its location on a Sea Point street long overlooked by the hospitality industry, is perhaps the star of the scene. Main Road is changing. The Cole is both evidence of that change and one of its primary causes. Who knew the sweet life would come to Main Road? Was that the spirit of Anita Ekberg, in a black evening gown, dancing in the Queen Victoria fountain directly opposite?
The Cole, 1 Church Road, Sea Point, Cape Town. Tel: 021 013 8999. visit thecole.co.za.
