Harbour Lights: Good Food but BYO Wine

Entrance to Harbour Lights

To Harbour Lights restaurant for lunch. It's on the first floor, overlooking the boating activities of Gordon's Bay old harbour.

It used to be the premier restaurant in Gordon's Bay offering old fashioned elegance and service with a wide ranging, eclectic, interesting and tempting wine list.

When we arrived at 13:10 there was not a soul in the place and we had to shout into the kitchen to eventually rouse a waitron.

The menu hadn't seemed to have changed, but the winelist looked sponsored by one of the big distributors. There are only four Sauvignon Blancs - reliable but boring brands Beach House & Tall Horse, plus Franschhoek Cellars and Niel Joubert.

But only Beach House was available by the bottle. The other three had already been opened for previous diners (when?) who'd bought by the glass. Non delivery by their supplier was blamed. Hummpph. We're in the Cape and there are hundreds of great wineries within a short distance with wines for sale.

So while waiting for the food to be prepared I went back to the apartment to collect Spier Sauvignon Blanc Signature Collection 2017 we'd bought at Spier the previous day.

Which was an ideal match for the food which was up to its excellent standard of the past.

Joan had a platter of King Prawns, calimari, two fillets of line-fish of the day (yellow tail) with steamed vegetables and crunchy fried potato wedges.

I had Kingklip in lemon butter with a salad and delicious crispy potato wedges.

With a bottle of fizzy water the food bill came to R430  (£26)

I don't know what has happened to this once great restaurant: the food is good, it has a great location, tables are covered in cloth, but it's showing signs of wear and neglect.

For good wine, BYO.