The best waterfront hotels in Cape Town
An insider's guide to the best hotels on the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, including the top places to stay for eclectic interiors, award-winning spas, high-end restaurants, cosy bars and rooms with Table Mountain and harbour views.
• The best boutique hotels in Cape Town
On its own quay, a bridge walk away from the more heavily touristed parts of the Victoria & Albert Waterfront, the Cape Grace manages to be both central and exclusive. The newly-built apartment surrounds are bland, but above these Table Mountain towers as an impressive backdrop, and below is the marina with eyecandy boats; alternatively book a room on the entrance side of the hotel, popular with guests who appreciate the authentic working harbour views. A lot of effort has gone into giving the hotel a historic naval character, with every corridor and room uniquely outfitted with a mix of antiques and reproductions, and flamboyant touches like chandeliers dripping with bits of what appear to be colonial-era artefacts.
• The best budget hotels in Cape Town
This is by far the tallest building in the harbour and the views are real Instagram fodder: whether you are ensconced on upholstered velvet in the Willaston bar, stretched out on a lounger on the rooftop, or waking up in your super-sized bed, the ant-like activities of tug boats, cars and shipyard workers are quite mesmerising, as is the mountain’s mercurial cloudscape. It’s just a few steps from the Robben Island ferry, providing easy access to the pedestrian pleasures of the Waterfront. Inside, The Silo is decorated in magpie collector Liz Biden’s inimitable style: an eclectic mix of furniture, much of it made to her specifications, with button-down chesterfields under Egyptian chandeliers, shimmering Persian carpets and bold colour choices.
• The best hotels in Cape Town
The decision to develop the V&A Waterfront in 1989 focused initially on a small historic area, in which the 1904 North Quay Warehouse on the pierhead was identified as the ideal site for a hotel. Today the V&A Hotel still enjoys an excellent central location, overlooking Alfred basin. The southwest-facing rooms and Ginga restaurant all have fabulous views of Table Mountain and the ever-changing happenings in what is very much a working harbour. The elegant turn-of-the-century exterior is unchanged, but interiors are a rather eclectic mix. The entire ground floor – reception, Ginga restaurant and adjacent coffee shop – have undergone a very successful makeover, with trendy café chairs, leather seating and the prodigious use of timber.
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Dock House has a plum position right on the edge of Portswood Ridge, the harbour’s historic precinct that overlooks the Waterfront, with a garden gate providing direct access. Sitting on the veranda or balcony in the evening with a lawn stretched in front of you and Waterfront skyline beyond, one feels very privileged to be a literal stone’s throw from the action yet tucked away in this private eyrie. Originally the home of the 19th-century harbour master, the rooms had to be developed within the heritage-protected double-storey structure, and just six extraordinarily spacious en-suite rooms have been created – definitely spaces you are happy to linger in. Given that you are in the densely developed harbour, the garden with pool and bar area is a real luxury.
• The best boutique hotels in Cape Town
Like sister hotel Dock House, the Queen Victoria lies within the historical Portswood Ridge, the Victorian-era residential area that is on an elevated terrace above the world-famous V&A Waterfront. As such it’s set apart from the hurly burly of the city’s most popular attraction, but a two-minute walk home and you’re in a secluded, quiet enclave. The Waterfront itself is well connected to the entire city, from the Robben Island to buses that take you as far afield as Camps Bay and Hout Bay. Inside, the foyer area has very much been cast in the Ian Schrager mould, with oversized pots, a triple height atrium and a white Corbusier-style staircase. This leads to the intimate, plush bar-lounge and restaurant. A pianist plays here at night, an open gas fireplace creates a cosy ambience on chilly nights, and the barmen are friendly and attentive.
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Comprising a seven-storey hotel block overlooking a marina with two man-made islands surrounded by bland modern apartments, this is very much an urban location, despite the Table Mountain views and canals. The hotel is a mere 300 metres from the popular V&A Waterfront, with its wide array of shopping experiences (don’t miss the Watershed) and dining choices. Lounging on Main Island is slightly surreal – designed to imitate a luxury island resort, with an enormous meandering pool, yet the bustling waterfront nearby. The award-winning Spa Island – a variety of pools, ‘experience showers’, great relaxation spaces and 12 treatment rooms manned by the most nurturing of therapists – is well worth a visit.
