I had quite the challenge for Fiance’s birthday a few weeks ago: find a restaurant in a town who’s food scene you don’t know, that he is guaranteed to love.

He’s usually game to try any new food, but left to his own devices he will always pick one of his favorites: pizza, burgers, or nachos. I decided to indulge this on his birthday.


We’ve had very little luck with pizza in Cape Town- it’s either really bad or on the lighter side, not the greasy, saucy, filling pizza we’re looking for. I’m sorry, Cape Town. You have a lot of good qualities, but pizza making isn’t one of them. There are still a few pizza places we need to try, though, so I could still be proven wrong. This ruled pizza out.

Most of the Mexican food places here are a little higher end and serve incredible creations like butternut quesadillas and octopus ceviche (I can’t WAIT to go to El Burro!), but not giant platters of cheesy nachos loaded with fillings like Fiance enjoys so much. So I decided not to go down that route.

This left burgers, which was great. We’ve had a lot of really good sandwiches in Cape Town. I did a lot of research and had several contenders, but I finally landed on Royale Eatery. This is their tagline:

“Royale is a restaurant. We serve burgers. Not just any burgers – burgers that make your soul tingle and your dreams come true.”


Ummm, yeah, this was definitely where we’d eat.

I made reservations for Friday night. They have a different area in their restaurant for reservations- upstairs, where there’s a very different feel and decor. And, you can’t order pizza if you’re seated up there! (There should maybe be a warning for this on their website) Luckily, we weren’t there for pizza. It’s a gorgeous restaurant.

To drink, I got a Mango and Coconut Batida and Fiance got the house red.

They do incredible things with burgers. They use several different meats, like beef, wagyu beef, lamb, chicken, fish, ostrich, and chorizo.

 

Fiance got the Cheddar Royale and added chorizo, and I finally settled on the Merino burger: a lamb patty topped with roasted red pepper pesto, coriander, and caramelized onions.

Royale Eatery also specializes in milkshakes, so we knew we had to end our meal with one. Fiance got to choose, it was his birthday, after all, and we got a chocolate peppermint shake. It was a chocolate shake with little delicious, crunchy peppermint balls all throughout.

Royale Eatery definitely held up to the reviews: it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had and I’d believe they have the best in Cape Town!