What’s On in Durban?

Plenty. Durban has quite enough to keep me busy, and that’s the truth.

By comparison to my home town, Singapore is a major world city that offers just about every entertainment you could possibly think of – everything from world-class concerts and exhibitions to international sports events and more. New restaurants of every level and description, from hawker stalls where a meal costs around US$3 to global celebrity chef restaurants where you’ll easily pay $200 or even $300 a head. So, after our nearly 16 years in this amazing metropolis, am I missing all that? No, not really.

The 5-star Oyster Box in Umhlanga Rockshas a selection of more-or-less fancy restaurants, including the Lighthouse Bar – and no, it’s not actually in the lighthouse itself

I loved growing up in Durban, and I loved it as an adult. I was never bored. Not in my naughty, sneaking-into-club teens, nor my frenetic out-partying-every-night twenties, nor after I’d sort-of-settled-down with Roy, was there ever not enough going on.

Back in the nineties, Roy and I would go to dinner once or twice a week, either just us or with friends; now, it tends to be several times a week. We’d hold dinner parties and barbecues a couple of times a month, and everyone reciprocated. Then, as now, we threw the odd big party, often including our teenage kids and their friends.

How many restaurants do you need?

I don’t need a thousand restaurants to choose from. And though I enjoy a fancy eight-course degustation menu (preferably with wine-pairing) as much as the next woman, I don’t really miss the lack of it, either.

Literally a five-minute walk up the road from our flat in Umhlanga is Little Havana, recently voted the country’s best steakhouse. (Just imagine, the bone-in fillet comes with roasted marrow bone!) That’s just one of twenty or so independent bars and restaurants within roughly the same radius of our flat, and right next door to us are the five-star Oyster Box and Beverley Hills hotels.

Upstairs, the country’s best steakhouse, Little Havana; downstairs, tapas-style Pinxada; and hidden in the corner of Umhlanga Rocks’s Granada Square is a Woolworths food store if you’re in cooking mode

My kind of breakfast – local avo on health toast at an Umhlanga Rocks café

True, Durban doesn’t have the exquisite Japanese and pricy French cuisine we love to indulge in when we’re in Singapore. It has nothing remotely like the Singapore Sunday champagne brunch at the Ritz-Carlton, the Fullerton, Swissôtel the Stamford and a dozen others.

Our 20th wedding anniversary get-together earlier this month at the Colony, Ritz-Carlton

On the other hand, I adore Durban curry, from the ubiquitous bunny to the buffets at the Oyster Box or the Suncoast; ditto the spicy-hot Mozambique-Portuguese cuisine that you get in my home town. Steakhouses are generally good. If you’re in the mood for sushi, try the oddly named Taco Zulu in Florida Road – though it’s mostly Tex-Mex, the new sushi bar upstairs was the best I’ve had anywhere for ages. And really, if you’re a good cook – as most of my friends are – you can turn the excellent local produce into whatever you fancy to eat.

No shortage of interesting craft beer in Durban

At last month’s Good Food and Wine Show at the Durban ICC (International Convention Centre), we discovered the brilliant Standeaven craft brewery from the Valley of a Thousand Hills, just 30km from Durban; as well as Poison City Brewing*, whose emblem is a cheeky marijuana (dagga) leaf on a surfboard. (* Durban has long been famous for its particularly strong form of dagga, informally branded as Durban Poison.) We tasted (and stocked up on) some superb wines from the Cape, and mopped up the alcohol with artisanal olives, cheeses, biltong, pizzas and Greek-style lamb.

The music still plays

From my childhood onwards, and probably long before that, Sunday night was jazz night at various venues around town – I remember the late great Simon Kardachi, Basil Metaxas and Colin Penn especially. Then there was Coltrane’s, and the African Jazz Pioneers played at The Rainbow in Pinetown; memorably, we hired them to play at the annual Mayor’s Ball during my time as Mayor Margaret Winter’s speech-writer.

I regularly attended Durban Philharmonic Orchestra (now the KZN Philharmonic) concerts at City Hall, usually with my parents. Later, both Roy and I sang in the Durban Symphonic Choir, and Roy also in the KwaZulu-Natal Chorale, so rehearsals took up quite a lot of time – as did post-rehearsal beer-drinking, over the road at the Royal Hotel.

The occasional concert is enough for me. Last month, my sister Dale and I caught our over-achieving 14-year-old godchildren, the Simpson twins, in a balletic performance of Peter Pan at the Sneddon Theatre. It was fabulous, of course!

Pre-show drinks at the Sneddon Theatre – Angie Tindall, me, Julie Simpson and my sister Dale

Dina and Kaela on either side of sister Hannah, before the show

Missing Singapore

So, when I miss Singapore, it’s not for its culture and night-life. I miss it for the people – our friends, the efficient and courteous staff at banks, the endlessly interesting taxi-drivers, the friendly cleaners, the condo guards. When we entered through Changi Airport a couple of weeks ago, the electronic access sign beeped, “Welcome Home” – and that’s just how I felt: at home, again.

At the annual Expat Living client event, held that same evening at the lovely Tamarind Hill restaurant in Labrador Park, I was able to catch up with dozens of people – colleagues, friends and clients. Nine days later, after fitting in a couple of lunches, several dinners and one indulgent champagne brunch at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia to celebrate Roy and my 20th wedding anniversary, it was time for us to Scoot off to Perth for Christmas.

And guess what? Perth, too, has plenty going on. Just watch this space!

Addendum: Semi-gratuitous party photos of friends in Singapore – they are what we miss