Cape Town things to do and see

Summer is slow to arrive in Cape Town, but once it announces itself, always with delicate spring blooms, South Africa’s oldest city is revitalised and ready to serve. Framed by the enormous Table Mountain, Cape Town offers pleasure-seekers a heady mix of abundant nature and bustling cosmopolitanism. It is the country’s art, design, food and wellness capital, says author and curator Sean O’Toole, a long-time resident. 

Late summer is especially social, with the Cape Town Art Fair (17-19 February 2023), now in its tenth year, part of a vibrant art scene that includes the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. The city is equally renowned for its outstanding dining options, as well as spas with spoil-yourself views of ocean, mountain, harbour and vineyard. 

Explore some of Cape Town’s coveted secrets

SAD Studio

This design concept store, located in the refurbished Old Cape Quarter, forms part of De Waterkant’s patchwork of luxe boutiques and fashionable pieds-à-terre. SAD – a jokey contraction of ‘South African design’ – stocks small editions by regional designers and artists. A handmade philosophy pervades its offering of fashion, jewellery and home interiors, curated by art dealer and restaurateur Baylon Sandri. Frances van Hasselt’s hand-woven mohair womenswear (South Africa is the largest mohair producer in the world), and artist Margaret Courtney-Clarke’s Swakara wool carpets, produced with weaver Moses Helao from fibres from Namibian sheep, are good examples of its small-batch, collaboratively produced luxuries.