Rick’s Café Américain: A Jazz Venue on Kloof Street

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”  Rick’s Café Américain has seen many such seminal moments in its 20 years around Kloof Street. Like its fictional counterpart from the classic movie Casablanca, it serves as an intersection between cultures, between locals and travellers, and has become a polyglot Cape Town institution, even more so since it moved in 2020 to a historical iron-lacework-decorated villa right on buzzy Kloof Street.

Owner Per Géza Menkö first opened Rick’s in 2005, the name coming from his then business partner’s former Cape Town nightclub. He re-imagined the Casablanca theme for a more laidback restaurant and bar, leaning into memories from his twenties when, as a young chef from Germany, he spent six months driving through Morocco in a red VW minibus. This was before he moved to South Africa in 1989 to take up a chef position in Johannesburg, met his wife and moved to Cape Town. After more than a decade as head chef at the Mount Nelson’s Grill Bar and then executive chef of the V&A Hotel and chef-owner at Kennedy’s Cigar Bar and Restaurant on Long Street, he’d had enough of tasting menus and high-flying cuisine. “When we opened Rick’s, I wanted a menu that was accessible to everyone, with big portions, and good but unpretentious food,” says Per.

Cultural crossroads

Rick’s Café Américain is known for Moroccan tagines, Mediterranean platters… and for their burgers, steaks and generous comfort food. “We didn’t want to go completely Moroccan,” Per says. “It’s like the movie, a European-Moroccan-American mix of cultures. They’re meeting from all over the world in Rick’s Café in Casablanca. And you get that mix here.”

From the minute you walk into the intimate bar, time slows down. Ingrid Bergman’s line, “Play it, Sam, play ‘As Time Goes By’”, seems to hang in the air, even when there isn’t a band playing. And with three very different floors there’s a mood for every occasion.

A gin and tequila joint

The downstairs bar is home to SA’s biggest collection of tequilas… there are at least 80 (including the last bottle of a Jose Quervo Reserva Rolling Stone Tour Pick tequila bottled in 1976 that you won’t find anywhere else), then there’s an international collection of gins from Norway, Sweden, Croatia and beyond, calvados, grappa, absinthe, cocktails and much more… over 500 items feature on the book of a beverage menu. Some days the bar revs up for a big match screening, but on Friday and Saturday nights it’s live jazz that sets the mood.

Date night, low light

The dining room on the first floor holds a more intimate ambience. The dimly lit cluster of rooms reveals the building’s history (it dates back to 1912) and, despite the thorough renovation when he moved here in 2020, Per has retained the feeling of time out of time. In summer the wraparound balcony is the place for a date night, suspended above the busyness of Kloof Street with Table Mountain and Lion’s Head as your backdrop. In winter the fireplace keeps things cosy for date nights and quiet conversations.

Rooftop highs

“Here’s looking at you, kid!” For celebratory toasts, cheers, highs, sundowners and casual get-togethers, it’s the rooftop terrace that draws the crowd. It offers the most stunning 360-degree views of Table Mountain and the city – even in winter you can wrap up warm with blankets, space heaters and weatherproof glass doors, perhaps with an aromatic glass of warming gluhwein in your hands, and soak up the city vibes (there’s another screen here for the big game).

Food for thought

We cosied up in the dining room under Moroccan lanterns and Casablanca movie posters beside the double-sided fireplace and tucked into a tasty shared tapas platter. Piled high with delicious lamb kofte, chicken brochettes, grilled squid, Moroccan fish cakes and cheese parcels, empanadas, dolmades, olives, tzatziki, baba ghanoush and hummus with a side dish of warm pita bread, it was a generous feast of globe-trotting flavours. After that we didn’t really need the lamb tagine we’d ordered as a main course, although we couldn’t resist tucking into the rich and meltingly delicious slow-braised meat laced with prunes, apricots, honey and cinnamon with al dente roast vegetables and couscous (bio-degradable take-home cartons came to the rescue and it was just as good next day).

Winter specials

There’s a different reason to visit all through the week for locals who treat Rick’s as their home from home, with a changing daily lunch special (R120) as well as several more tempting deals.

• Tuesday: a two-for-one burger special.
• Wednesday: with every steak enjoy a complimentary 250ml carafe of Leopard’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon.
• Thursday: the Date Night special… order a tapas or mezze platter to share and get two glasses of Pierre Jourdan Belle Rose bubbly on the house.
• Sunday: a slow-roast leg of lamb with Moroccan spices, roast potatoes and vegetables (R185).

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” So much more than a gin joint, Cape Town’s own Rick’s Cafe is one you’ll want to walk into often, whether for affordable comfort food, rooftop views, a celebratory toast, big-game screening, or chilled music night.

Opening times Monday – Sunday, 11am – 2am (kitchen open 12pm – 10pm).
Closed Monday in winter.
Contact 021 424 1100/021 822 1100, info@rickscafe.co.za
Where to find it 103 Kloof Street, Gardens, Cape Town
Book through DinePlan

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