CAPE CLASSICS REVISITED: Barristers, where the gavel comes down on a good night out

{JSON.stringify(article.attachments[0], null, 2)} --> The faux-Tudor eatery and pub still flies the flag for reliable food and good times. It’s a place of cheer with no pretensions, just like restaurants of old used to be.

I ventured beyond the Crème Fraîche Curtain this week to make my way to Barristers in Newlands. Though we’d been there many times from the 1980s to the early years of the new century, this was our first visit in at least 25 years.

If you were in any doubt that Barristers should be regarded as a classic among Cape Town restaurants – the category does not require a restaurant to be fancy or refined – you have their word for it. On their website the claim is stated plainly: “ Barristers Grill has always been a favourite meeting spot in the Southern Suburbs and is one of the grand old restaurants of Cape Town.”

Grand, and old. Well, it is now. But it’s the next sentence that explains more aptly what Barristers is today, 46 years after it first opened in 1980: “Situated in the heart of Newlands Village, the restaurant continues to provide warmth, friendship and good cheer.”

And this focus is clear as soon as you walk in. There has been some change over the decades, but it’s in the management style more than in the physical restaurant and bar. It feels more pub-like in 2026, whereas Barristers once felt like a characterful old grill room (even when it was new – that “Tudor” look is a clever and rather convincing fabrication) which happened to have a bar. It’s a switch of focus.

This is not to take anything away from it: we had a grand old evening, three of us, happy to be back in a space we had not been in for what could be as long as 20 years, or more.

Barristers was opened in 1980 by Peter Gordon, and run by him until Lance Chandler bought it in 2008. The difference in management style is plain to see. There are large TV screens here and there and when there’s a big match on, well, it might not be the best moment for your quiet dinner with old friends. A blackboard proclaims that you need to buy a ticket “to secure your seat” for the All Blacks-SA Test match coming up. That sounds like crowd control or a way of keeping a lid on things.

But don’t think this means it’s a rowdy sports bar. We were there on a sports-free evening and, even though we were in the smaller dining room just off the hallway and large bar next door, we were perfectly comfortable.

I had a bit of a wander and quickly found the much larger dining room to the rear, which was more like the Barristers I remember. The theme, if you don’t know Barristers, is Tudor, but obviously it’s faux-Tudor given that Cape Town had no buildings in the 1500s. So it’s a folly, in a sense. The period styling was achieved with some impact, and that the interior design has weathered nearly five decades says something about the workmanship.

I think the mood of the present-day spaces would be improved by more subtle lighting; the present lighting is a bit harsh. But nobody seemed to mind. There were groups of eight or more at tables nearby, and people traipsed through the room, to and from the larger dining room, all evening.