CAPE TOWN REVIVAL

A generation after the end of apartheid, the city is buzzing with a new creative energy

- Nicholas DeRenzo

PERCHED ON THE southwesternmost edge of the continent, Cape Town can feel like the tip of the African iceberg—and many visitors don’t realize how much depth lies beneath the surface. They sunbathe on its beaches, cage-dive with its great white sharks, sip its wine—but do they ever truly engage with its people?

A quarter of a century after the end of apartheid, a new generation of creative Capetonians demands to be seen and heard for the first time. Formerly ignored cuisines from the area’s Xhosa people and Muslim-majority Cape Malay community are coming to the fore; African contemporary art has finally got a museum that feels as vital as Paris’s famed Centre Pompidou, and even the townships are embracing their status as entrepreneurial hubs.

TO SQUEEZE IN as much of the region’s dramatic scenery as possible, I begin my visit with a half-day tour with Cape Sidecar Adventures, which offers rides on a fleet of 1950s and 60s motorcycle sidecars.

Owner Tim Clarke outfits me in a leather jacket, helmet, goggles, and gloves, and introduces me to the company’s “marketing manager”: a rescue mutt named Brody who wears “Doggles.” Brody and I hop into the tandem sidecar. I’m not a dog person, but it’s can’t-fight-this-feeling anymore cute when he rests his head on my shoulder throughout the drive.