It’s not an overstatement to call Café del Sol a beloved restaurant. Long before there was a Johannesburg In Your Pocket (established 2013), this writer would take a trip to Olivedale to seek out what was a favoured weekend lunch spot. While Italian cuisine is always easy to find in just about every city, Café del Sol has always stood out; for the quality of its food, the charm of its service, and the warmth of the family behind the name.
Café del Sol was founded in 2007 by a tight-knit Italian-South African family with deep culinary roots. At the heart of the story is Mamma Luciana, who was born in Italy and raised with traditional Italian values. Her lifelong passion for cooking has been fuelled by a joy of bringing people together in true Italian hospitality style. It helped that Nonna Chiara, the family matriarch and grandmother, was a superb cook who shared her recipes.
It’s easy to throw out a word like legendary; more difficult to make it stick, but when a restaurant has been around for nearly 20 years in Joburg, it’s something to be celebrated. More so when you think back to how news spread then. In 2007 there was no Instagram or Tik Tok reel action, no food influencers, no social media wildfire, and no WhatsApp groups. Joburg's far north was a journey you had to pack sandwiches to make, a venture into a mix of light industrial and plot land. The idea that word of this restaurant travelled so far and so easily means it must have been remarkable then. The news spread in the best old-fashioned way: by word of mouth. Once someone had tasted Café del Sol’s dishes, they felt compelled to share the good news.
Luciana, together with her children Chiara and Ryan Viljoen, started the business with no formal restaurant background but plenty of heart, determination, and some really excellent family recipes. Café del Sol in Olivedale was cosy and unpretentious, and it served up unforgettable pasta dishes foregrounding authentic, home-style Italian cuisine. At the time, we were also charmed by the napkins that featured famous quotes about the love of food.
While the family has opened other restaurants along the way, their new spot at Steyn City, a premier lifestyle estate to the north of the city, marks the start of a new chapter.
The restaurant is warm and inviting, with a deli section of Italian goods. Browse the shelves, and you can pick up staples like speciality cheeses, olives, and cold meats. The family cookbook is proudly displayed. Our Italian Legacy of Love was published in 2021 and contains many of the classic yet contemporary dishes. The pizza oven is an outstanding feature of the restaurant, with its bronze mosaic tiles, and a long table invitingly runs down the centre of the space.
Café del Sol invites family-style eating, long table lazy lunches, and relaxing on the piazza, which spreads out across Steyn City Centre. We visited on a Saturday (it’s important to note that to enter Steyn City one must have a reason, and we think making a booking is an excellent one).
We were in luck to have Luciana at the restaurant on the day, always the most gracious hostess. She even joined our table for a bit so we could catch up on news and find out about the move to Steyn City.
The food here is presented with flair. Dishes are generously portioned, and there’s a heartiness that conveys the love this family has put into their restaurants. Café Del Sol takes pride in using the freshest ingredients available and maintaining authentic flavours. For example, they only use Parmesan that is 18-months-old imported Grana Padano, originating from northern Italy. It’s been made using more or less the same method for centuries, since the time it was first produced by Cistercian monks to preserve surplus milk.
Seasonality is part of the menu, and we love the emphasis on using free-range and hormone-free chicken and the care taken to source fish from the Green List of the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative.
Café del Sol Steyn City also has a new menu focus, a signature that includes authentic Napolitana (or Neopolitan) pizza with a light and thin base and an airy and pillowy edge, along with favourites from Café del Sol’s other eateries. The menu is wide-ranging with salads, small plates, and crudo, along with meat, fish, chicken, vegetarian, and vegan dishes. There’s also a great menu for the bambinos, with a wide variety of well-priced dishes that kids will love (average price of R80).
Whatever Café Del Sol does, it does well. We started with cocktails. An innovative menu was presented with themes of fresh and floral, tropical, and bold. The Aperol Floral Spritz was a winner, a refreshing blend of aperol, prosecco, rose water, elderflower, and bitter lemon tonic. It was accompanied by a freshly made and fluffy pizza bread. Next up was a stuffed calamari starter and a Norwegian salmon tartar with horseradish crème fraîche and avo purée.
We went lightly, knowing that we wanted pasta for mains (that's not very Italian we know, but their pasta dishes here are so good). We then feasted on homemade pasta dishes, perfectly al dente, that we are ready to travel back for – ravioli with gorgonzola, cream and umami onion marmalade, and a pulled lamb and rocket tagliatelle.
At this point there wasn’t much space for dessert, but we were entreated by a quote from someone named Jacques Torres on the dessert menu, who claimed, “Life is short. Eat dessert first.” Knowing we had missed that opportunity and wanting to make up for it, we eyed the affogato with vanilla gelato, espresso, and brittle, but settled on sharing the crème brûlée with nougat gelato and caramel popcorn. An utterly irresistible combination.
It's no wonder that Café del Sol doesn't have customers; this restaurant has fans.
Make a booking here.
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