Award Winners

The country's top casual restaurants for 2018 were announced at the 2018 Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Best Everyday Eateries.

The top names in each category for each province were determined by a two-step process. Star ratings given by the public on eatout.co.za and the Eat Out app from 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2018 were tallied. The restaurants that received a large volume of high scores from fans were visited by Eat Out's professional critics, gave their own ratings. Final results were based on a 50-50 composite score from the public and the critics.

This is the fourth year running that Eat Out, together with Mercedes-Benz, invited the public to help choose South Africa’s favourite everyday restaurants. “These awards never fail to excite us, as we find out which restaurants inspire the most devotion amongst its fans,” said Linda Scarborough, Editor of Eat Out. “This year the easy-to-use Eat Out app made reviewing that much easier, so we could garner public opinion on as many South African restaurants as possible."

The winners – Western Cape

The 2018 Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Best Everyday Eateries in the Western Cape are:

Best Asian Eatery: Shio (De Waterkant)

Best Bistro: Avontuur Estate (Somerset West)

Best Coffee Shop: Pajamas & Jam Eatery (Strand)

Best Country-Style Eatery: Ons Huisie (Bloubergstrand)

Best Indian-Inspired Eatery: The Indian Chapter with Prim Reddy (Bloubergstrand) - Winner of this category for the second consecutive year

Best Italian-Inspired Eatery: Giulio's Café (City Centre)  

Best Seafood Eatery: Kyoto Garden Sushi (Gardens)

Tramontina Best Steakhouse: Rare Grill (Kenilworth)

Highly commended – Western Cape

In addition to the winners, the following runners-up were also awarded highly commended certificates:

Highly commended Asian-Inspired Eatery: Active Sushi (Hudson Street)

Highly commended Bistro: Skotnes Restaurant (Constantia)

Highly commended Burger Eatery: Jerry's Burger Bar (Blouberg)

Highly commended Coffee Shop: Boston Coffee (Bellville)

Highly commended Country-Style Eatery: Karoo Art Hotel (Barrydale)

Highly commended Indian-Inspired Eatery: Marigold (Franschhoek)

Highly commended Italian- Inspired Eatery: A Tavola (Claremont)

Gauteng

Winners

Best Bistro: Farro (Illovo)

Best Coffee Shop: Afro-boer (De Wilgers) - highly commended in this category in 2017

Best Italian-Inspired Eatery: Saint Restaurant (Sandton)

Best Asian-Inspired Eatery: Momo Soko (Sandton) - highly commended in this category in 2017

Eat Out Tramontina Best Steakhouse: Wood & Fire (New Muckleneuk)

Best Tapas Eatery: Urbanologi (Ferreirasdorp)

Highly commended

Highly Commended Asian-Inspired Eatery: The Great Eastern Food Bar (Melville)

Highly Commended Coffee Shop: La Coco C Food Purveyors (Silver Lakes)

Highly Commended Italian-Inspired Eatery: Gemelli (Bryanston)

Eat Out Tramontina Highly Commended Steakhouse: The Local Grill (Parktown North) - winner in this category in 2017

KwaZulu-Natal

Winners

Best Bistro: 9th Avenue Bistro (Morningside) - highly commended in this category in 2017

Highly commended

Highly commended Coffee Shop: Terbodore Coffee Roasters (KZN Midlands)

Best reader review award

For the first time this year, we recognised a reader reviewer chosen from our user base across the whole country, with a goal to encourage more fair, balanced reviewing in an industry blighted by trollery. Read more about the award here, and the true cost of reviews here.)

Winner: Jane Smith

Our editors praised her impartial and honest reviews, which graciously mentioned issues while applauding successes. Fair, balanced writing helps users to make better dining decisions. Jane reviewed in excess of 18 restaurants on the Eat Out site during the eligible period. Read a few examples of Jane's reviews here: Jonkershuis (Constantia), Caffe Mario and East Head Café.

Title Sponsor

Judging

Eat Out fans directly influence the results with their star ratings when they review a restaurant on the site and the Eat Out app. Stars are awarded from one (poor) to five (excellent), for food and drinks, ambience and service. The restaurants with the highest average star rating in each category in each province for the period are eligible to win. As in 2017, each shortlisted restaurant will be visited and rated by an Eat Out critic. Final scores will be based on a 50-50 composite rating determined by the public and the critics.

Terms and conditions

• The Best Everyday Eateries winners will be determined by a restaurant’s average star rating over the eligible period, with equal weighting given to reader reviews and critic reviews.
• Eat Out will combine the star ratings of the reader reviews over the eligible period with those of the critics on the Eat Out editorial panel to get to an average score out of 5 for each restaurant. (There will be equal weighting for the reader reviews and the critic’s reviews, i.e. a 50/50 split.)
• In the instance that a restaurant receives multiple positive reader reviews but has not been rated by a critic, a critic will be commissioned to review and rate the restaurant. An average score will then be determined.
• In the instance that a restaurant does not receive enough reader reviews to qualify to win but has a high star rating from the critic, a ‘highly commended’ award may be given.
• The awards period is 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2018.
• Users need to be logged in to review and rate a restaurant.
• Restaurants need to be listed on eatout.co.za to receive reviews and ratings. If your restaurant is not listed, please click here.
• Individual restaurants need to have received a minimum of five reviews in the awards period to qualify to win.
• A prize will not be awarded if the highest-rated restaurant in that category has an overall rating lower than four stars.
• Ratings are done based on ambience, service, and food, in a 20:20:60 ratio to give precedence to food.
• Users may review and rate as many restaurants as they’d like, but only one review per user profile per restaurant will be tallied.
• A restaurant’s staff members may not review their own restaurant. Spot checks will be carried out and offenders will be disqualified.
• The results will be audited based on the above guidelines.
• In the event of a ratings tie, written reviews will be taken into consideration.
• The auditors’ findings are final, and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the winners.
• Eat Out reserves the right to place restaurants in the most relevant category.

About

For the first time in 2015, Eat Out hosted this new set of restaurant awards, with the winners in each category in each province voted for by the readers.

The winners of the 2018 Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Best Everyday Eateries will be the restaurants in each province in each category with the highest average ratings by readers and critics on eatout.co.za and the Eat Out app, over the period of 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2018.

(The Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Restaurant Awards remain focused on the Top 10 fine-dining restaurants in the country, and are judged by a panel of experts.)

The categories for 2018 are:

Best African Eatery
Best Asian Eatery
Eat Out Durbanville Hills Best Bistro
Best Burger Eatery
Best Coffee Shop
Best Country-Style Eatery
Best Food Truck
Best Indian Eatery
Best Italian Eatery
Best Mexican Eatery
Best Seafood Eatery
Tramontina Best Steakhouse
Best Tapas Eatery

Sponsors

Title sponsor

Associate sponsors