La Perla

La Perla is one of Cape Town’s oldest restaurants and opened in Waterkant Street during the winter of 1959. In 1969 it moved to its present location on the Sea Point beach front.

Since its inception 5½ decades ago, La Perla has become an institution and home to people from all walks of life. In the early days, La Perla was the place to see and be seen and some of the famous clientele included Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Marceau and Cliff Richard, to name but a few. This trend continued in Sea Point and over the years, the restaurant has managed to maintain and increase its luster.

La Perla’s founder, Emiliano Sandri, immigrated to South Africa in the early fifties and introduced many innovations to a relatively naive market. La Perla was the first restaurant in South Africa to serve a cappuccino. It was also the first to serve calamari and crayfish, which were considered to be no more than fish bait in those years. La Perla became known for its home-made bread, large steaming tureens of fish soup, toasted crayfish sandwiches, stacked fresh salads, seafood platters and many other signature dishes.

The furniture was also innovative; sextagonal steel tables, bucket chairs and eventually, the large wood–carved chairs of La Perla in Sea Point.

Since the early days, Emiliano Sandri introduced contemporary art as part of the restaurant décor and atmosphere. The La Perla in Waterkant Street was characterized by large steel mobiles, designed by Alexander Calder. This tradition continued as Sandri befriended and supported many local and international artists. La Perla’s longstanding association with art and artists in South Africa led to the family establishing the Stellenbosch Modern and Contemporary (SMAC) Art Gallery adjacent to La Perla’s sister restaurant, the Wijnhuis in Stellenbosch. SMAC Cape Town followed in 2011.

La Perla has won numerous awards and accolades, including its recent recognition by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina as one of the top twenty Italian restaurants in the world.

A number of our waiters have been at La Perla for more than forty years and are well known to all Capetonians as well as the restaurant’s faithful clientele from all over the world.