Gold is a huge restaurant set back from the Waterfront in Green Point. It’s in a massive brick building with three stories and multiple seating areas, each intricately decorated with African-themed art and fabrics. The restaurant itself is quite beautiful and visually interesting, and it’s made even more so by the cast of characters you will meet throughout the night — for example, the huge Mali puppet who greets you at the door.

Live performances are what makes Gold unique. Guests who arrive for dinner by 6:30 can participate in an interactive djembe drumming session. Then, throughout the 14-course meal, there are three additional performances in each dining room, complete with amazing singing, drumming, and dancing. There is also face painting for those who are interested.

The food is African-themed, drawing on cultural sources from South Africa’s Cape Malay to Timbuktu. It’s billed as a 14-course meal, but really it’s just four courses with 14 different items. In my visit the set menu started with Xhosa corn pot bread served with South African smoked fish paté. That was followed by a course of starters including an Algerian prawn briquat, Cape Malay samosa with creamed chutney, Kenyan irio spinach patty, Tunisian harissa spiced chicken wing, and an Ethiopian iab of cured cheese and herbs. Then the main course consisted of a Kalahari venison pot, Moroccan couscous, Cameroonian butternut, South African warm spinach, and Zanzibar bean stew. Dessert was a fruit skewer and an orange and walnut cake. All of it was tasty and interesting, but nothing really mind-blowing. The restaurant is popular with tour groups and serves a huge number of people, so don’t go expecting gourmet dining and intricate presentation. However, it is a lot of food! Bring your appetite, or do some drumming before dinner to work one up.