Time to treat yourself: 20 Places in SA that serve downright delicious waffles

(Image by The Creamery)

Cape Town

Tashas Waffle House, Constantia
Each Tashas has a flawless restaurant formula that allows them to be consistent. You know what you’re getting at Tashas: excellent quality food, and an experience that is easy and relaxing. Scrumptious, comfort food forms an integral part of most of their menus, and naturally, they’d pull off a waffle house perfectly. Tashas Waffle House at Constantia Village serve waffles in style, done any way you fancy. Choose between three waffle bases which include a red velvet variety (yes!), and then choose your scoops, and finally, your syrup and toppings which have a long list of goodies including halva, Oreo, meringue, Nutella and more.

Lefty’s, East City
This dive bar and authentic smokehouse goes all out with their American-style comfort food, like beef brisket, burgers and ribs. But one of the menu highlights is their chicken waffle. It’s proper Kentucky fried chicken, topped with crispy bacon, drizzled with maple syrup, on top of two crispy waffles.

The Big Bay Waffle Company, Big Bay
A down-to-earth family-run waffle joint with a simple, modern space and a focus on both sweet and savoury waffles. There’s a lot of love that goes into the running of this café and it shows in the mammoth waffles stacked with toppings and dripping in syrup. You can choose from banana, berries, a variety of ice cream flavours, nuts, syrup and chocolate sauce.

I Love Waffles, Simon’s Town
This is your one-stop waffle shop by the seaside. I Love Waffles sticks to the traditional formula of waffles, with a choice of sauce and syrup and other sprinklings, and finished with some soft serve ice cream. The casual café also serves sundaes, cupcakes, cake and ice cream cones.

Stacked Diner, Gardens
Stacked is everything you want in a diner: quality burgers, hand cut fries, a laid-back environment, a menu that allows you to mix and match, and a location in the heart of the City Bowl. Waffles are a central feature of the menu, with five types that can either be served as a stack of two or a stack of four. All the waffles are served with vanilla ice cream or cream and you can choose between the classic maple syrup, caramel sauce and sautéed banana, lemon curd and meringue, apple pie, or chocolate and hazelnut.

The Creamery, Newlands and Palmyra Junction
The Creamery focuses on artisanal ice cream in an array of unique flavours like salted caramel, carrot cake, chocolate malt with an exciting limited edition flavour added each week. Their outlets are all a little different, offering specialities unique to the store, and for Newlands and Palmyra Junction it’s the classic Belgian waffle served warm with two scoops of your choice.

Franky’s Diner, Sea Point
This where you go to live out your 1950s American high school film fantasy, twirling on bar stools and sipping on a choc shake, the space transports you right to a scene from Grease. Franky’s serves up the classic American large round waffles, topped with ice cream or cream, maple syrup, with the option of adding Smarties, banana, Flake chocolate or marshmallows.

Johannesburg

Van De Waffle, Rosebank
Van De Waffle is an authentic Belgian waffle house with a takeaway set-up. Situated in The Zone mall, waffle toppings are on display for customers to mix and match and load their waffle with anything they desire. Go wild with strawberries, chocolate sauce, ice cream, marshmallows and more! You can eat in or takeaway.

Trieste Café, Greenside
This traditional and unpretentious Italian café focuses on gelato and coffee and their essential accompaniments. This, of course, includes waffles. Choose your favourite ice cream to go on top of your freshly baked waffle, which comes in a ‘bambino’ size with one scoop and an adult size with a choice of four scoops.

Von Pickartz, Newtown
Von Pickartz is all about tradition, and their family waffle recipe has been cherished for 170 years. They serve the liege variety of Belgian waffles which is a little sweeter than the regular kind, made with pearl sugar. They sit in the Fox Street Sheds market, where you can grab a waffle and watch the bustle go by. Toppings include ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel pop corn, banana, almonds, as well as savoury options.

Paoletto Café, Edenvale
A waffle café and coffee shop, striving to comfort and satisfy patrons with good, honest food. They offer a great selection of traditional sweet waffles as well as the less traditional savoury waffles. Try the spinach and feta waffle, or the burger waffle (yes you read that right!) or go for sweet toppings like Bar-One, fried banana or strawberries.

The Federal, Melville
This diner style eatery, with their ode to New York delis and diners, would not be complete without a waffle or two in the mix. Enjoy their dessert Belgian waffle or head to The Federal on weekends for the killer brunch, which includes a vegetarian waffle stack with grilled halloumi, pan fried tomato, spring onion relish, ketchup butter and maple syrup.

Durban

The Waffle House, Ramsgate
The Waffle House is something of a landmark. Sitting beside the Ramsgate Lagoon, The Waffle House links to the lagoon beach by a wooden bridge. The setting itself is a draw card, lush reeds and a beautiful view of the lagoon, there’s no place quite like it,  which is why it’s been open since 1957. The character is palpable and the waffles glorious: choose between sweet or savoury both in a wide variety that will make it very difficult to decide!

The Waterberry Coffee Shop, Ballito
This is a very special place with a spectacular setting. The family-run coffee shop was built by the owners, a lovely wooden building that integrates with its forest surroundings and sits beside a pond. The enchanting environment offers the ideal escape, combined with lovingly made, delicious food. There are two waffles on the menu: the everyday with cream or ice cream and maple syrup or homemade choc sauce, and the berrygood with ice cream or cream, fresh strawberries, drizzled with homemade chocolate sauce, toasted almonds and syrup.

Pretoria

Lucky Bread, Brooklyn Mall (Also in Mall of Africa and OR Tambo International in Johannesburg)
The name says it all, these guys bake excellent hand crafted breads and other baked goods. You’ll find cakes, tarts, filled sandwiches and incredible baked hybrids like cruffins. Bakery items are prepared with the utmost skill and care, making sure that customers can expect the same quality at each outlet. They serve four types of waffles, each in the round classic shape and each with either cream or ice cream. Choose between the classic old fashioned, peanut butter chocolate ganache, strawberries and cream, and chocolate mousse.

(Image by Lucky Bread)

Royal Danish, Colbyn
Royal Danish is a traditional Belgian ice cream parlour serving classic flavours like chocolate, butter pecan and mocha almond fudge. Each day there are 10 flavours on display, which can be served on top a crispy syrup drenched waffle.

The Belgian Triple, Olympus Village Shopping Centre
This restaurant and bar is dedicated to fine Belgian food and drinks, with the largest selection of Belgian beers in the country. Enjoy traditional Belgian cuisine from kroketton to bitterballen and Moules escargots. Keeping with the theme, they serve a waffle for dessert with ice cream and berry compote.

Port Elizabeth

Something Good Roadhouse
In true roadhouse style, something good serves up a classic American waffle. Enjoy the unrivaled views of PE’s coastline as you tuck into a syrup-soaked round waffle with two swirls of vanilla soft serve. They also have a deluxe waffle with caramel or chocolate sauce and a waffle sandwich with caramel or chocolate dip and nut sprinkles.

Across the Country

Vovo Telo, see branches here
This nationwide bakery chain has made quite a name for itself since first opening in PE back in in the mid 2000s. Although they have expanded substantially, they haven’t lost their crucial essence on which they were founded: artisanal baking and pastry, using quality, farm-fresh ingredients. You’ll find all sorts of bakery items from croissants, to wood-fired breads made from stone-ground flour, to decadent sweet treats, prepared daily. The breakfast waffle is not to be missed, with two poached eggs, crispy bacon, caramelised onion, roasted Rosa tomatoes and basil pesto. They also make two sweet waffles, one with berries and Mascarpone cream and the other with banoffee with salted caramel.

RocoMamas, see branches here
RocoMamas thrives on a ‘go big or go home’ philosophy, with food and drink items served in an over-the-top fashion, for complete and utter indulgence. They are famous for the smash burgers, smothered in sauce and toppings, but have a seriously notable dessert menu which includes freakshakes and waffles. Waffles come in three varieties, plain, cookies or Nutella, and they can be had in a half portion. 

ALSO READ: 23 Restaurants in SA that serve a mean eggs Benedict

Where do you get your waffle fix? Let us know in the comments section below!

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