Breakfast is big in Joburg. This is an early-morning city, and Joburgers love to rise before the sun, work out, and squeeze in a breakfast meeting at their favourite restaurant before hitting the office for a full day of hustling. Great off-beat breakfast restaurants abound in the City of Gold, and every suburb has its own traditional favourites.
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So, here are four options for an off-beat breakfast, if you’re looking for something a bit different:
(And, by the way, these four spots offer great discounts on the ENTERTAINER).
1. Park Café, Parkwood
Park Café is a lovely surprise, hidden in the basement of the Park Corner shopping centre off Jan Smuts Avenue. To get there, enter the shopping centre through the Woolworths, and look for the flight of stairs to the lower floor.
Once you’ve found the place, you’ll be charmed by the colourful décor, the great coffee, and creative breakfasts. I’m partial to the bacon and spicy tomato express, with an impossibly large pile of tasty bacon.
2. XO Cronuts
XO Cronuts, in the second-floor food court at 27 Boxes in Melville, is certainly not the place to go for a healthy start to the day. The café’s signature creations – half croissant, half donut – are oozing with sugar, cream, and the most decadent pastry in town.
But if you’re looking for something to reward yourself with after a heavy workout, or simply feel like celebrating for no particular reason, look no further than XO Cronuts. If you’re really looking to splash out, order a signature double-thick milkshake topped with the cronut of your choice.
3. French Corner Bakery
The Cramerview Shopping Centre in Bryanston is not a place where one would expect to find an authentic French bakery, serving croissants made with pastry flown in from Paris. And yet this is where you’ll find the French Corner, the closest thing in Joburg to a Parisian sidewalk café.
The French Corner’s croissants are delicious, as are its freshly-baked baguettes. The colourful pastry case is also worth a browse.
4. The Argentinean
Situated on a prominent corner in Linden, Joburg’s newest foodie Mecca, the Argentinean offers the suburb’s best locals-only vibe. I’m not sure what makes the Argentinean “Argentinean”, per se, as the restaurant is known for its croissants and the menu is typically South African. But the Argentinean’s pleasing atmosphere more than makes up for its lack of culinary creativity.
There is plenty of outdoor seating and great people-watching, which makes it the perfect spot to enjoy a cappuccino and a toasted sandwich on a lazy Saturday morning.
What’s your favourite off-beat breakfast spot? Feel free to share it in the comments below.
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