Duchess of Wisbeach: The Worst Restaurant in Cape Town?

There’s no shortage of fabulous eating opportunities in Cape Town, from fine dining at places like Chefs Warehouse Beau Constantia to little local eateries that serve the best burgers or prawns for really reasonable prices. This is why the tale I have to tell of last night’s visit to the Duchess of Wisbeach comes as something of a shock.

Duchess of Wisbeach is one of those Cape Town establishments that’s on our annual list to visit. Since it opened in 2009 we have been at least once every year – it’s a real highlight of our stay. A night to really let your hair down, dance on the tables and sing your heart out.

So when we arrived in early January I phoned up to book a table for a Thursday (THE night to go there) and the first one available was March 2nd. I got a phone call a few days before telling me that I needed to pay R350 a head deposit. It’s a pet peeve of mine, but those are the rules so I did it. I then got a call on the day to tell me that I hadn’t paid my deposit so could they have a credit card. I had to go back into my bank account and send them proof of payment – for the second time – having already confirmed that we would be there less than 8 hours later. I should have got the message that things were going to be a bit messy.

Which they sadly were. On arrival we had a drink at the bar which was more of a challenge than it needed to be with its bartenders clearly trained at the school of no eye contact. We were then shown to our table squashed into a corner near the emergency exit. The Duchess is not deluxe and we know this – we’ve been dozens of times – but it makes up for this with its friendly service, lively vibe and perfectly decent food. But not tonight.

So in South Africa there’s this thing called Load Shedding. Basically the electricity is turned off for several hours at a time, two to four times a day. Obviously this affects restaurants and I totally understand and sympathise – it must be a nightmare. Tonight this meant a drastically pared-down menu with salads and six main course options. Fair enough.

It took us well over an hour to even get our order in. Quite a while later our waitress comes back and tells us that they have run out of three of the dishes we ordered, including mine (a burger). It turns out if we don’t want lamb chops the only option is salad. So I order a garden salad. This comes (eventually) in a giant mixing bowl and is 95% leaves. Sadly leaves are my least favourite salad ingredient. Oh and there didn’t seem to be any dressing, not that I could taste anyway.

My husband ordered the lamb chops which there seemed to be in abundance. They arrived twenty minutes later than everyone else’s dishes and were inedible they were so burnt. In this time I  had already sent my leaf-fest back and been shouted at by one of the staff who put the torch on his phone on to (extremely patronisingly) show me the most minuscule piece of avocado clinging to one of the leaves

By now the music had been turned up – usually our favourite part of the night. The staff used to lead the way by dancing on the chairs and tables and singing along to old favourites like Mama Mia and Sweet Caroline and everyone has a jolly good time. It’s loud, frenetic, sweaty and hilarious and I have plenty of videos to prove it, there’s no holding anyone back! Today the music very quickly changed from singalong to headbanging clubby. It has its place but it’s not in my life so we started the search for our waitress to get the bill. Not an easy search.

The bill arrives after another long wait and they haven’t taken my deposit off. Which is most of the bill – because we’ve eaten very little (or practically nothing in my case). I’m sorry – I’d spent way too much time paying that deposit and proving I’d paid it to the untrusting restaurant and now they “forget” to deduct it. Perhaps they’re hoping the tequilas being offered at inflated prices by scantily-clad young ladies will have affected our memories to the sum of R2,100. I’m embarrassed to say I lost it at this point and told the waitress exactly what I thought.

Which is this. I won’t be going back to the Duchess of Wisbeach. Besides the fact that the food is inedible or non-existent it’s not even fun anymore. And the offensive attitude of the staff really left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Or perhaps that was due to the fact that for the first time in my life I went out to a restaurant for dinner and never actually ate anything. That’s something I’m going to do my best to avoid repeating. So long Duchess of Wisbeach.

Thank you to my dear friends who shared the evening and my disappointment and hangriness! Let’s go somewhere better next time – it won’t be difficult!