There are plenty of places to choose from in Camps Bay, but we were on the hunt for something with a more romantic, less party vibe. After popping our head in several places to get a feel and check out the menus, we settled on The Grand. The restaurant is a white and flamingo-pink building that faces the ocean, with a spacious front outdoor patio and ample indoor seating. There’s also an active fire place inside at night, which was what ended up luring us in (we sat right next to it.)

At first, the interior of The Grand is impressive, but once you start to examine it a bit, it seems a bit corny, as if some of the items were purchased from KMart. The fireplace was decorated by over-the-top cheap looking cherub statues, along with a lopsided, falling apart disco ball over the fireplace that looked totally out of place. It wasn’t even hung up, and was as somebody had just left it there and forgot about it. The tables were nice with white tablecloths, but many were randomly stacked with local fashion magazines as decoration, which didn’t make sense at all. In fact, I’m not really sure what direction they were trying to go with the interior.

As for food, we started off with calamari, but they brought us the wrong kind and we had to send it back. Once it came back, they were still pretty average. Being in Cape Town and having tried calamari at several other places, The Grand’s take on it doesn’t really stack up too well, and the portions are small, too. The mains were a quite a bit better. We shared the Grand bouillabaisse along with the Sue Salmon salad, both were good, but I’d have to rate the bouillabaisse a bit better. It had large chunks of seafood and the sauce was delicate and flavorful. The salad while tasty was nothing to write home about.

We had some vanilla cheesecake for dessert to share, but wasn’t a big fan of the consistency. It had too much of a creamy texture that got stuck in your mouth, though the taste was good.

Most people are going to come here for the location, and the location is great, with views of the 12 apostles and the ocean. Service was decent throughout the meal, but were sometimes MIA when we wanted something.