Located adjacent to the Garden Court Hotel, Riff’s has an appealingly relaxed and congenial atmosphere, and a well-designed interior. Exposed brick and wood paneling gives way to hardwood floors, and mini-statues of musicians playing various jazz instruments adorn the sparkling bar area. Other accessories continue the “riffs” music theme, such as the framed gold records on the walls, and chandelier crystals that look like piano keys. There are flat screen TVs showing sports games and an overall casual feeling, but the ambiance and menu are more upscale than you’d find in a sports bar.

In addition to starters such as prawn cocktail and snails in garlic sauce with bleu cheese, one of the menu staples is creative gourmet burgers: there’s the Bacon Blast (bacon and blue cheese), the Lost Mexican (salsa, blue cheese, and jalapeno), and the Billy The Kid (goat cheese, grilled brinjals, basil pesto and sweet chili mayo). You have the option of beef, lamb or grilled chicken burgers. The other house specialty is grills. You can choose from sticky pork ribs, fillet, T-bone, rump, or lamb cutlets and add the sauce of your choice: cheddar and peppadew, mushroom cream and coriander, whipped garlic butter, Dijon mustard, or pink peppercorn and brandy.

Other mains include the “beef dunker” (shaved roast beef on a hoagie roll), fish and chips, Thai green curry, and pasta salmone. If you’re not that hungry there are small bites such as the trio of mini burgers, chicken lollipops, and battered line fish. Specials of the day, such as squid head with rice, and vegetable soup are written in chalk on the blackboards.

So our meal started out well, but we experienced some glitches. My burger came out medium rare as requested, but was a bit lumpy and had a huge pile of sautéed onions on it, which was not specified on the menu. My companion ordered fish and chips (hake), but the fish had the skin on, which I had never seen before and thought was a bit odd. But apparently this is normal in South Africa.

Also, the wait staff was very nice, but not very good. We asked for water twice and never got it, and ended up going to the bar and getting it ourselves. And when it was time to get the bill, we had a hard time finding our waiter.

But Riff’s redeemed itself when we got our dessert, the “chocolate decadence.” It was somewhere between a cake and mousse, and was intensely rich and creamy. Yum!