Best Halal Eateries in South Africa by Adeela Gadar

Last year, December, 2022, I embark on a road trip in South Africa from Cape Town with
friends like family. My friend planned a highly ambitious and activities packed itinerary
spanning 12 days and 13 nights covering six out of nine provinces. We were literally on the road
90% of our trip. As a Muslim Pakistani our prime concern was to find halal cuisine while
exploring variety of South African cuisine I’ll go over the specifics of each restaurant we tried in
chronological order in this blog post, along with my rating out of 5, with 5 being the best.

Nana Bhai Halal Food, George (Best homely food) **** Directions to Nana Bhai

We departed Cape Town on Friday, December 16, 2022. Following our visit to Cape Agulhas,
the southernmost point of South Africa renowned for its rocky and sandy beaches, we discovered
Nana Bhai, which was situated in close proximity to our current position. Although the restaurant
specialized in takeaway, a small number of walk-in customers are also served there. A couple
manages it from the comfort of their home. Thankfully, there was enough room for our ten-
person party, so we took our places around the large table and began quickly perusing the menu.
While adults settled on curry with cumin rice, chicken vindaloo, and lamb and chicken curry
with naans, kids were instantly drawn to Nutella parathas rolls. Even though the food was
simple, nothing extravagant but it was wonderful and brought back memories of family
gatherings over comfortable meals.

Grill’ Inn Takeout, Gqeberha, Port Elizabeth **

After a long exciting day in kysna, we stopped in PE for dinner at Grill’ Inn. We had our
bookings at Orchads Residency for the night, so we decided to have a quick takeaway and head
to our crash pad for the night. I recall the service was quite slow. We placed our orders from
their combos and shawarma sections. Not much to comment about the restaurant, the flavour of
the food was quite mediocre.

Paparika’s Restaurant, Margate, PE **

We arrived in Margate shortly after dusk and immediately began searching for halal food
options. We decided to try Paparika’s which had an elaborate menu including pizzas, wraps,
shawarma, grilled chicken, etc. The pizza turned out to be a major let down, and the remaining
dishes we got were sufficient to fill the bellies but not our taste palette. With half-full bellies and
late night coffee cravings we proceeded to the nearest McDonald’s.

Sunkist Restaurant, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal ***

For the dinner, we opted for Sunkist Restaurant. I must say that the ambiance, crockery and the
crowd was similar to any restaurant back home. Being a sea food lover I hurriedly fished the sea
food menu and ordered prawn curry with rice. As much as I was craving for a hearty meal, I was
dissatisfied with the portion size and the flavor of the curry was quite sweet to my taste. Yet I
dove into the curry, scooped out all the prawns and left the stew in the bowl.

My Diner, (Durban, (KwaZulu- Natal)) ****

We went to My Diner for the late night tea after supper at Sunkist. They were experiencing load
shedding at that moment and the entire area was completely blacked out. Still keeping our hopes
up, we entered the restaurant and placed the order for tea. We were told that the tea could not be
prepared without power. Saddened on hearing this we started to make a move to the exit , just
then the owner came in and on finding out that we were tourists from Cape Town , he offered to
make adjustments and made the fresh pot of tea using generator .We were extremely grateful for
his gesture and took our seats. The tea was quite refreshing and yanked us all up from our sleepy
state. Emulating other diner’s order, we too called for Pani Puri. The puris were crispy and
crunchy, however the water was not that tangy as we were expecting it to be. We finished off our
night out with a Pan and head out to Westwood Lodge.

Kebabish, North Beach, Durban (KwaZulu- Natal)

Five stars and a moon for the best restaurant we’ve had on the whole trip. After carefully
examining their Google ratings and reviews, we decided on Kebabish. The restaurant was all that
we were looking for. Their menu was quite extensive and offered authentic Pakistan styled food.
We ordered tricons (samosas) and soup as appetizers, and for the main, nihari, grill platter and
biryani. Everything was super delectable and mouthwatering.

Colaba for Dessert, Durban (KwaZulu- Natal)

We made a dessert stop at Colabo to cap off the day on a sweet note. It had an excellent
ambiance and a scrumptious list of desserts. We tried their Mint Chocolate Brownie and Sundae.
Drakensburg Artisan Chocolate by Chocolate Memories
The Drakensberg Chocolate Memories was a proper chocolate café with desserts and their
specialty was fondue pots where they serve fruits and cheese with chocolate pot. Other than that
they had a tasting table for chocolates and were also selling hazelnut spread, cocoa powder,
chocolate chips, and braai marshmallow packs. We ordered the apple crumble, brownies and
pancakes. We also ended up buying chocolate bars (milk, white, and ruby) and hazelnut spread.
Breakfast at Istanbul Pizza and Bakery (Midrand, Gauteng, Joburg Gauteng)
Major retail businesses and restaurants were closed on Boxing Day. We made the quick decision
to go straight to the Turkish Mosque. All of us decided on Istanbul Bakery and Pizza. It was a
very wise decision. The food was stellar. Pizza, menemen, baklava, kunafa, and pide were
among our orders.

Dinner at Tandoori Night (Midrand, Gauteng, Joburg Gauteng) *

This restaurant was our worst choice to try .Except for the kebabs, everything else that we
ordered ,Murg Changezi and Murg Musallam was awfully bad.

I hope you enjoy reading the post. I would love to hear from you.