Luxurious Lenny

Phoenixes are supposed to rise from the ashes but in Gardens, the greenest suburb of Cape Town, Lenny the owl has emerged from the burnt out shell of the top floor of Leinster Hall, the new benchmark for luxury under Table Mountain.

lenny

What makes the arrival of Lenny at The Stack, an upscale club and restaurant which had a soft opening last week, all the more unexpected is that the GM Nigel Pace is a Maltese Falcon. Former GM of the Cape Grace, Nigel is straight out of a Graham Green novel. Or John le Carre.

The Stack fills an important vacuum for trending venues with the Mount Nelson looking increasingly like an old age home and The Taj still struggling to shake off the Tweede Nuwejaar Kaapse Kloppse skandaal by parachuting in a new GM Sanjay Sood and a very Indian interpretation of luxury which clashes with Cape Town’s own vision of itself.

Rather than gloomy foyers with tea lights on the floor, The Stack embraces faux leopard skin carpets and the funky bright colours of Ebony Gallery you’d expect in Franschhoek or a BA First Class Lounge. The bistro-style restaurant offers the classics like salade aux lardons with a poached egg on top and steak frites. 

The kind of meal that’s becoming increasingly harder to find in Paris. Which could explain the presence of a Ferrari driving Frenchman in an aran sweater, the owner of a game farm, who’d come to join the club. The first of many with a membership list of 400 filling up fast.