Salvation Café has the prestigious reputation for having Joburg’s best breakfasts, a pedigree upheld by many a local, and backed up by a national award. Being something of a breakfast person myself and having rather high standards for the creaminess of scrambled eggs and the fluffiness of pancakes, I can wholeheartedly vouch that the Salvation Café, an unpretentious, casual eatery with simple understated décor, wins my vote too.

The menu was partly inspired by owner-chef Claudia Giannoccaro’s travels around the world as a chef on luxury yachts, so alongside classics such as perfect poached eggs Benedict (all eggs are free-range here), creamy mushrooms on toast, and bacon omelettes are more far-flung dishes such as sweet Caribbean French toast served with fresh fruit and cream and my personal favourite – the breakfast burritos. Filled with scrambled eggs, grass-fed beef or halloumi cheese, jalapeno, cheese, sour cream and guacamole, these whopper wraps are almost big enough for two and are the perfect hangover fix-me-up. Freshly squeezed juices (the apple, pear, pineapple and ginger is a glass of zingy health) served in quirky milk bottles and great coffee seal the breakfast deal.

The compact lunch menu offers up substantial salads such as free-range chicken and almond, sandwiches and wraps and the favorites – gourmet beef burgers, five-spice calamari with an Asian salad and Thai-style fishcakes. Desserts are of the cake variety: the New York cheesecake is a winner, as is the carrot pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting.

Salvation Café is perennially busy, with a buzz filling the airy indoor space and the outdoor courtyard tables under olive trees in summer. Walk off your breakfast or lunch by strolling around (and shopping in) 44 Stanley, a stylish and trendy urban-industrial development of clothes boutiques, art galleries, a fabulous second-hand bookshop full of treasures and some gorgeous décor shops.