The long awaited V&A Market on the Wharf has opened in the historic building near the V&A Hotel in the V&A Waterfront, which once housed Planet Hollywood, David Kramer’s Theatre, and Musica, with more than fifty vendors displaying their food and beverage offerings. It is Cape Town’s first permanent market, operating from Wednesdays to Sundays, from 9h30 – 19h30.

Owned by Greg Anderson, or ‘Bubbles’ as Vaughn Johnson informed me, who took over the management of the Market when the previous operators pulled out, the Market offers a kosher deli, fresh seafood, meat, fruit and vegetables, baked ware and delicacies.  Greg impressed with his passion, and kindly offered me a V&A Market on the Wharf branded shopping bag, to ‘hide’ my Woolworths bag!  Greg is proud of the large number of new business owners that have joined as vendors, very few having been seen at any other markets in Cape Town.  V&A Waterfront tenants Vaughn Johnson and Ian Halfon had come to have a look, and we had coffee and tea together.

A last-minute building regulation hitch saw the opening of the Market delayed by two days to last Friday. The space is large, one main hall with an upstairs section housing the craft beer bar and seating for eating, which is not available at the stalls themselves.  It will also be the space of the ‘Test Kitchen’, in which MasterChef SA runner-up Sue-Ann Allen will be doing cooking lessons for children, and will host food and wine pairings. There are two smaller side halls, upstairs and downstairs.  Upstairs a collection of spades decorates the wall, to give it a farm feeling, and downstairs a collection of chairs tries to create a similar effect less successfully.  Tables have been placed outside too, looking out on Noble Square, and more are to come facing Table Mountain.  It is a wonderful place to sit in the breeze and enjoy one’s ice cream, and to chat to the vendors having a break, as well as to other customers eating and drinking their Market shopping.

The vendors are housed in cheap looking pine booths, but it is up to each vendor to dress up his/her stall, some doing so successfully and building a brand, and others just using their space functionally.  The Little Denmark stall impressed me the most, with its branding, and use of the Danish red and white to attract attention, and to show how different its food is, being typical Danish dishes of hotdogs (R25); Smorrebrod (R30), being tiny sandwich bites on rye bread with different toppings; and a typical Danish Christmas dish of Aebleskiver (R20), being pancake puffs sprinkled with icing sugar and served with strawberry jam, offered with red and white serviettes.  Other interesting stalls were The Creamery, the first permanent outlet for the delicious ice cream brand, which has been very active in obtaining exposure at a variety of markets; The Mozzarella Well, owned by Puglia Cheese, the well still to be installed, and will contain various mozzarella cheeses for one to fish out of it, if I understood owner Ursula Ostuni correctly. They also sell a range of Italian products, as well as baguettes; Bubble Tea is an international drink, which makes its South African debut at the Market; the Royal Bavarian Bakery branch in the Market is far friendlier than the one run by Lucy Marston inside the V&A Waterfront’s re-opened Food Court, with the owner Harald Mittag of the company hands-on;  Jean-Pierre Fortain Chocolatier with Belgian chocolates has an impressive looking stand, but they do not do tastings; and Deluxe Coffeeworks and Origin coffees and Nigiro teas are quality beverages.

The full list of vendors has been supplied by the Market:

Adams Apple	Fruit and Veg
Angus Meats	Meat
Around Cheese	Cheese
Aspen Flowers	Flowers
Bandoeng	Indonesian
Berkies On The Wharf	Kosher Deli
Bite Me’s Gourmet Panini	Gourmet Sandwiches
Blue Sky Organics	Olive and Olive Products
Books On The Wharf	Books
Bosini Bros	Fruit and Veg and Cookware
Bubble Tea Company	Tea based Gourmet Drink
By Nature	Dried Fruit and Nuts
Cecilia’s World	Dried Fruit and Nuts
Chrisna’s Olives	Olives and Olive Products
Classic Marmalades	Preserves
Clothing Store	Branded Merchandise
Como Foods	Latino
Coniglio	Rabbit and Duck Meat
Costa the Greek	Greek
Dr Juice	Juice
Durban’s Finest Curry	Curry Dishes and Soft Serve
Flannerie Bonaparte	Waffles and Pâtisserie
Fortain Chocolatier	Belgian Chocolates
Gourmet Pantry	Baker
Gourmet Samosas	Samosas
International Deli	Salamis and Sausages
Mr Pizza	Pizza
Munch-a-Chimney	Cakes
Naked drinks	Juice
Nap and Deluxe	Cakes
Nigiro Tea Merchants	Tea
Origin Coffee	Coffee
Oryx Desert Salt	Gourmet Salt
Pasta Deli	Italian
Prontomama	Gourmet Sauces
Royal Bavarian Bakery	Baker and Gourmet Sandwiches
Salmon Run	Salmon, Trout and Argan Oil
Salushi eXpress	Sushi
Seared	Specialist Food
Squirrels Bavarian Nuts	Nuts
Stokkiesdraai Biltong	Biltong
Sweet Dream The Fudge Makers	Fudge
Taste Buddies	Vegetarian Burgers
Taste of Taiwan	Taiwanese
The Cape Malay Deli	Cape Malay (Halaal)
The Creamery	Ice cream
The Danish Hotdog Stall	Gourmet Hotdogs
The Deli Box	Gourmet Sauces
The Mozzarella Well	Cheese
The Oyster Lady	Oysters
Things I love	Gourmet Salads
Totally Wild (Pty) Ltd	Aloe Products
Waymenels	Salt Beef

The benefit for the vendors is that the Market space is used exclusively for the purpose of selling their produce, and therefore they do not have to remove their tables nor their produce at the end of every day, making the Market a collection of little shops.  A vendor shared that a smaller stand costs a reasonable R6000 rental per month, with a turnover rental too, which commendably is halved in winter, and includes water, electricity and gas.  More than one vendor expressed concern about what business would be like in winter.

I missed cupcakes, macaroons, and cakes at the Market, an absolute minimum requirement, in my opinion, despite the Royal Bavarian Bakery selling German Christmas Stollen slices, and Nap selling a few treats, but not in any large numbers. I expected butchers, fishmongers, bakers, and more, selling fresh produce, and not having it all pre-packaged.  I expected more fresh fruit and vegetables, as one would see in European city markets, and which was depicted visually in early publicity photographs of the Market.  I missed the smell of fresh food in general in the Market building. I did not see a celebration of Cape Town being the food capital of our country.  It might be a good idea to hand out a floorplan of the location of each of the 54 vendors to everyone entering the building, and to have one entrance, and a different exit, to force one to see all the stalls.  Not everyone would venture upstairs, which means that they would miss out on about a quarter of the vendors.  I missed having counters near the stalls, to eat at while doing one’s shopping inside the Market – some barrels would suit this purpose.  While we wish all the very friendly vendors and the V&A Market on the Wharf all the best, I could not help but feel that it lacked some magic, and needs more amazing food vendors, to make one come back regularly.

V&A Market on the Wharf, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. Tel (021) 276-0200. www.marketonthewharf.co.za Twitter: @VA_Market_Wharf  Wednesdays – Sundays.  9h30 – 19h30.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage