2 Best Restaurants in Oaklands, Johannesburg

This small and unpretentious restaurant and deli has legendary food, especially the pasta. Try the Parma ham and melon as an antipasto, and then get a pasta for your main course, such as the tortellini, which is filled with a mixture of ham, mortadella sausage, chicken, and Parmesan cheese, then served with mushroom cream, or butter and sage sauce. The service is as outstanding, as is the food, and there’s an excellent wine list. Be sure to book ahead. Run by an Italian family, Tortellino’s is popular for both lunch and dinner.

Although not in the same league as the more famous Nambitha and Wandie's traditional township restaurants in Soweto, the Sophiatown Bar and Lounge in Newtown is popular and much easier to get to. The restaurant is decorated with photos and murals of 1950s musicians like Miriam Makeba, and patrons gather around braziers on chilly winter nights. Jazz music vies for attention with the rather boisterous crowd, and the place has the feel of a shebeen (township bar). The food is a good example of black South African cuisine. A specialty is pap-and-wors—a traditional South African maize-meal porridge (pap) that is white and stiff with boerewors (a South African sausage). The restaurant serves other dishes popular in the townships such as mogodu (tripe) with samp (stewed corn kernels) and beans, as well as ostrich steaks or burgers. Simpler meals like steak and fresh salads are also served.