Keen to hunt down quirky, colourful treasures? Wondering where to source quality fresh food? Local shops and restaurants will offer you plenty of local flavour, value for money and add a significant dimension to your festival experience.
Keen to hunt down quirky, colourful treasures? Wondering where to source quality fresh food? Local shops and restaurants will offer you plenty of local flavour, value for money and add a significant dimension to your festival experience.
If you’re eating out, try The French Quarter, a restaurant accompanied by Haricots deli, and Café d’Vine. These New Street eateries are famous for their tantalising flavours that don’t stretch the average wallet.
Recommended at Haricot's are the large savoury muffins for R20 and gourmet sandwiches, R35. The restaurant is doing its bit to help reduce unemployment in Grahamstown through its skills-training programme and you'll be supporting this initiative by eating there. You can also order meals online at www.haricots.co.za.
Café d’Vine, further down New Street, has a beautiful outside area. They're offering a breakfast special for R50 that includes egg, bacon, sausage, sautéed onion, hash-browns and a cup of coffee. Their mini-breakfast and lamb curry specials cost R22 and R60 respectively.
If you're on a budget and are doing self-catering this Festival, look for locals selling their own fresh produce, particularly cabbage, spinach and beetroot. “Local is lekker and all the produce is clean and organic. Also, it's great to support local entrepreneurs,” says Lawrence Sisitka, custodian of Umthathi Training Project.
The project offers skills development in home cultivation towards healthy living and reduced poverty and unemployment. The home-grown vegetables are also often cheaper than those sold in supermarkets.
For a selection of delicious baked goods, Home Industries is the place to shop. Located in Pepper Grove mall, they also sell a selection of soaps and lotions, knitted goods. Their delicious savouries and ready-made meals are ideal for heating up on the run between shows. Home Industries also has real sheepskin slippers, made in Grahamstown.
Grahamstown Seafood is the town's fresh fish outlet. It's next to The French Quarter in New Street and shares premises with The Cheese Source, which offers a wonderful selection of locally produced cheeses. If it's a souvenir you're looking for, then look Under the Arch.
Situated under the Drostdy Arch in Somerset Street, this little shop sells an array of locally made art and decorative objects, including paintings by Flora Stone and Brenda Sweetman and ceramics by Greg Jacob.
Interesting items include bottle-cap earrings for R15, papier-mache money boxes for R40, decorated journals for R40 and wallets made from recycled juice bottles for R15. Poetry books by Grahamstown poets are also available for R45 each.
Just outside the Drostdy Arch is a group of women, members of the Masithandane group of crafters, who sell beaded necklaces and jewellery. “People at festival like proper Xhosa things, like the iThumbu lesiXhosa,” says one of the crafters, Nothemba Makinana. She believes these necklaces portray the essence of Xhosa culture, offering festival-goers value that lives beyond these 11 Amazing days.
