A Castle Lite draught. Photo by Greg Landman.

Brought to you by SAB

Eat Out and SAB are on a quest to find the best pub lunch in the Eastern and Western Cape. Over the coming months some of the Cape’s favourite pubs, bars and grills will be taking part in the #BESTPUBLUNCH campaign. They’ll each be offering a pub lunch and draught beer special as their entry – but it’s down to you to pick the winners by casting your vote here: bestpublunch.co.za.

We’ll be announcing the winner each week on Eat Out, and sending one of our own critics to report back.

(See the previous winners here.)

The Royal Oak in Tableview. Photo by Greg Landman.

The Royal Oak Pub & Restaurant in Tableview has won the competition for a second time this week. We sent Greg Landman to find out why.

The deal: Daily lunch specials for R40 that included cottage pie, fish and chips, liver and onions, and bangers and mash. Add a Castle Lite draught for R15.

Beers out of five: Value 5, service 4, cold beer 5, ambience 5

Pictures of other Royal Oak pubs around the world adorn the pub. Photo by Greg Landman.

The pub: A much-loved 23-year-old local watering hole, The Royal Oak is intimate in the manner of a typical English village pub – always full of locals, who love the wood and horse brasses on the walls. Pictures of other Royal Oak pubs all over the English-speaking world adorn the walls and the area above the bar. Tables and comfy corners encourage one to congeniality – unsurprisingly, many a friendship has sprung up here. Leaded windows add to the character. It’s loaded with atmosphere; very much the kind of place where one can forget that right outside lies the suburban way of life. Service is warm and friendly — very “Cheers”.

The Royal Oak’s rich mac-and-cheese. Photo by Greg Landman.

The food: I had their excellent macaroni cheese which is generously filled with bacon bits, nice and rich, and a Castle Lite draught all for R55 – astounding value. The only drawback is that they do not serve food except at lunch time. In the evenings one can order curry from across the road at The Indian Chapter with Prim Reddy or pizza from around the corner. Sunday lunch is a sell-out – always.

Value for money: Astounding!

Do you have a favourite local pub? Rate them on bestpublunch.co.za and you could win Uber vouchers.