Six Million Hand-Laid Bricks Greet the Superyachts at the Cape Town EDITION

Africa's first EDITION lands on Quay 7 at the V&A Waterfront, with 142 rooms, a heated rooftop pool and a brick façade designed by Neri&Hu.

Someone laid more than six million bricks by hand to build the Cape Town EDITION, and you are meant to notice. The hotel, the brand’s first in Africa, has opened at Quay 7 on the V&A Waterfront, right beside the Waterfront’s new superyacht marina and facing Table Mountain.

The architects are Neri&Hu, working with Cape Town-based firms. Their brief was a working harbor, so they skipped the glass tower. The building is long and low, with pitched rooflines that nod to the warehouses that once stood on the site. The bricks are set in shifting patterns across the façade, which gives a humble material some texture and a lot of personality.

A drum, a staircase and a view

Inside, the centerpiece is The Drum, a cylindrical space open to the sky. Sea air and the Cape’s changeable light come straight in. A spiral staircase climbs to an outdoor viewing platform, and the city appears in stages: the harbor, Table Mountain, the Atlantic, the Waterfront at work below. EDITION calls it part arrival, part public lookout. Locals and passersby are invited up as well as guests, which is a good way to make a hotel feel like part of the neighborhood.

The 142 rooms and suites aim for residential rather than hotel-generic. Joinery takes its cue from 19th-century travel trunks, the furniture is bespoke, and big windows frame the views. Rugs and furnishings come from KwaZulu-Natal-based Shuttleworth Weaving. At the top sit the 240-square-meter Penthouse and the 112-square-meter Harbour Suite.

The art is the other draw. Cape Town’s Southern Guild curated the collection. Zanele Muholi’s black-and-white portraits hang in the Punch Room. Usha Seejarim’s Fading Dish Cloth, built from hundreds of wooden clothes pegs, is in the spa. Chuma Maweni’s smoke-fired ceramics add sculptural weight to the lobby and dining spaces. Design Network Africa sourced objects from makers across the continent, among them Zulu ukhamba vessels and mouth-blown recycled glass from Eswatini.

Dinner, punch and a rooftop

Executive Chef Phil Carmichael, whose résumé includes Berners Tavern at The London EDITION, runs the food program with South African beverage partner George Hunter. The signature restaurant, Shale, works from a seasonal menu built on local farmers, coastal fisheries and winemakers. Meat is dry-aged in-house and the wine list is mostly South African. One dish to expect: Saldanha Bay mussels in a curry velouté with seaweed salad and braised black rice.

Upstairs, EAVE sits beside the heated rooftop pool. It starts the day as a lazy afternoon spot, turns to sundowners and dinner, then adds music after dark. Small plates draw on the Winelands and the coastline. The adjoining Pool Terrace follows the sun from breakfast to light dinners.

Downstairs, the Lobby Bar is meant to feel like a Cape Town living room, with a striking bar and a pool table. The Punch Room is the more theatrical of the two. It revives the old ritual of punch carried along the trade routes that passed through the Cape, in a setting of wood paneling, velvet banquettes and low lighting. Punches arrive in bowls for sharing. The local one is Brandewijn, a mix of brandy, Pinotage, rooibos, pineapple, lemon and winter spice.

Below sea level, above the marina

The spa sits below sea level, away from the waterfront bustle overhead. It has five treatment rooms, a couples’ suite, a sauna and a steam room. Infrared beds and Therabody recovery boots are on hand for tired legs, and the treatments use Omorovicza formulations. There is also a 24-hour gym. A daily program of yoga, breathwork, sound baths and movement runs beside the rooftop pool.

For events, the hotel has a ballroom for up to 200 people, a boardroom, two meeting studios and a private event terrace. Vantage, the rooftop event space, handles the more exclusive gatherings.

George Fleck, EDITION’s Senior Vice President and Global Brand Leader, called Cape Town “one of the world’s most compelling cultural capitals” and “a natural home for EDITION.” Graham Wood, CEO of the V&A Waterfront, said the opening “signals the next chapter for Granger Bay.” General Manager Leonie Andereya pitched the hotel as a place that should “feel as relevant to a Capetonian as it does to someone visiting the city for the first time,” and described it as “sophisticated but never formal.”

Cape Town joins a list that already includes Lake Como, Tokyo, London, New York and Riviera Maya. Few of those can claim to look out over a working harbor, a row of superyachts and a mountain at once.

Via PR Newswire