Nkhensani Mkhari is an Art Curator and Cultural Worker who knows Cape Town beyond the postcard version; the communities shaping it, the artists giving it texture, the spaces where culture still feels alive. He’s followed Mamelodi Sundowns since he was a kid, skipping school to watch them train. He calls his Cape Town “Little Monaco.”
Mamelodi Sundowns. In the early 2000s the stadium near my neighbourhood was their home ground — we used to skip school to watch them practice. I’ve been hooked ever since.
I drink first thing in the morning. The idea is to drink and stay up until kick-off.
Badgers Football Academy, up in Oranjezicht. It’s a women’s club, which is the whole point for me. Football here is still so male-dominated that having a space built around women playing, coaching, and running the thing isn’t a small gesture, it’s the reason it matters. One of the founders was recently made head of women’s football in South Africa, which tells you something about what they’ve built. And the setting doesn’t hurt: you’re playing five-a-side with the mountains right there. It’s competitive and warm at the same time, a rare combination.
The Kimberley Hotel — the old Kimbo. Best atmosphere in the city for it.
Rascals is just a really sweet vibe with affordable drinks and that last part matters more than it should. Cape Town is getting more and more expensive for the people who actually live here, a lot of it driven by the digital nomad influx, so a proper local pub that hasn’t priced out its regulars feels almost like a small act of resistance. The Scrumpy Jack is the same energy. Old-school, Arsenal jerseys on the walls, a pool table, the kind of place where you become a regular whether you meant to or not.
Oooh you can’t go wrong with the Curry from Cafe Ganesh. It’s one of the classics, please trust me.
There are the three I keep returning to. Zeitz MOCAA is the obvious one. Heatherwick’s carving of that old grain silo into those scooped, cathedral-like galleries is one of the boldest pieces of architecture on the continent, and as the major institution for contemporary African art it carries real weight in what it chooses to show. But Blank and Stevenson are where the more interesting risks get taken. Blank has a sharp, rigorous program. It’s where you go to see artists before everyone’s talking about them. Stevenson’s Woodstock space is just a beautiful machine for looking at work: double-volume ceilings, rooms that lead you through a show with real intention, contemplative even with Sir Lowry Road buzzing outside. Together they map how I think about the city’s art scene,the institution and the spaces keeping it honest.
AKJP gets at something I love, which is the refusal to stay in one lane. It’s a clothing store championing independent South African designers, but it’s also a café and a bar, and the mix is the point. You go in to look at local design and end up staying for a coffee or an unfussy cocktail, watching Kloof Street go by. It’s stylish without being precious about it, and it’s rooted in supporting local makers. That combination of good design, good drinks, and an actual point of view is hard to find.
The Sea Point Promenade. There’s no stadium, no club, but the whole stretch behaves like a pitch. There are always pickup games breaking out on the grass, kids using two jackets as goalposts, the ball rolling toward the sea wall. More than that, it’s the one truly democratic public space in the city: every class, every neighbourhood, every body shows up on the same strip of green, the same way football at its best collapses everyone onto the same pitch. And then there’s the wind, which is its own opponent. A Cape Town southeaster will bend a ball mid-flight and humble anyone who thinks they’re in control. It feels like football because it has football’s real subject: shared ground, and the weather you can’t negotiate with.
The water is freezing, the wind is hectic, the food is magic, and you might not want to ever leave.