Ba-Pita opened at the end of last year in Melville, at the top of 7th Street where the old Golf Tea Room used to be.
A few weeks after it opened, a great article on Ba-Pita’s interesting origin story appeared on New Frame. I shared the article on my Facebook page and it got so much traffic that it somehow felt redundant to write a post of my own.
Now that a few months have passed, I can’t let another day go by before getting Ba-Pita onto my blog. I went there for lunch again today – the food tastes so damn good and the vibe of the restaurant is so damn nice. So here’s an abridged version. (Read the New Frame article above for more detail.)
To cut a 30-year-long story short: Ba-Pita opened in 1986 in Yeoville, which – as I’ve been told – had a similar kind of hippy-ish/hipster-ish vibe to what Melville has today. The Middle-Eastern-style restaurant became a legendary eating and drinking hangout for Yeoville’s bohemians.
Times changed, the city changed, and Ba-Pita closed its Yeoville doors in the late 1990s. In 2018, the eatery re-opened in Melville under the same ownership.
I don’t know what the old Ba-Pita looked like. But the new one is charming and colorful, with pretty glass lamps hanging from the ceiling and a mosaic clay oven in the corner.
There’s also a really lovely outdoor courtyard – shared with the neighboring restaurant, Spilt Milk – that is oddly impossible to photograph.
Ba-Pita’s menu includes simple Middle Eastern fare – shawarmas, laffas, falafel, hummus, etc. – cooked really well with quality ingredients and sauces. The pita bread is particularly fluffy and delicious.
I understand Ba-Pita has a decent drinks menu with craft beer, sangria, and several wines by the glass. But so far I’ve only gone for lunch and had water and Coke. I imagine the evening vibe is great though.
In conclusion, Ba-Pita has everything I want in a restaurant: Tasty and unpretentious food, fun atmosphere, great location, interesting story. I plan to eat there a lot.
Ba-Pita is at 1 Seventh Street, Shop 2, in Melville.
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house?
I guess it’s wrong to say I’ve never blogged about 44 Stanley; I’ve mentioned it countless times over the years (see here and here) when writing about specific restaurants or shops that are there. But I’ve never written a dedicated post about 44 Stanley as a destination and it’s about time I did – especially now, with the holidays upon us.
I’ve been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I’m finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on Saturday Thorsten and I got the chance to visit Indwe Park, an indigenous garden and sculpture park in Braamfontein, and I knew I had my topic for today.
Given this week’s political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I’m hoping you’ve have had enough of the U.S. election horror show – I know I have – and are ready (at least temporarily) for some wholesome American travel adventures. If so, please read on about my four-day visit to Maine, the northeastern-most state in the lower 48, with my sister, Susanna.
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It makes me smile, when I see it.