Café Dijon Grill & Bistro is a charming little restaurant combining French bistro dining with relaxed Cape Provencal atmosphere. The restaurant focuses on the best fresh ingredients and letting them shine through. The substantial menu offers classic French favorites like duck a l’orange, snails bordelaise, and French onion soup while South Africa makes a contribution of top quality meats, like seafood, beef, and lamb. There is also a bistro blackboard menu offering seasonal treats and lighter lunches.

I stopped by for a weekday lunch and opted to start with the steak tartare. Generally, the fancier the restaurant, the smaller you expect the portions to be, but the steak tartare was huge! It was served with a few pieces of fresh French bread and topped with a quail egg. The egg was ridiculously small in comparison to the huge serving of meat, but I can’t fault them for giving bang for the buck! And the stake tartare was very tasty and was well seasoned. By the time my main dish came—a gourmet lamb burger with frites, I had pretty much lost interest in eating any more. So I had most of a huge lamb burger, fries, and onion rings as a takeaway. I did sample a few bites from each though, and I was particularly impressed with the juicy and flavorful lamb burger. It is advertised as a home ground Beaufort West lamb patty served on a sesame bun with caramelized onion, rocket, tomato, aioli and mint jelly on the side. The fries and onion rings were well executed too. All the flavors melded really well together, and once again, the portion was substantial.

The atmosphere at Café Dijon is also quite nice. It’s nestled in with several other restaurants next to the Rockwell Hotel, so there is nice, relaxed courtyard seating under the trees on a secluded, peaceful pathway. Otherwise, opt to dine in the opulently decorated dining room complete with huge tree-like wooden sculptures. Service was a little slow but perfectly friendly.