70 THE WORLD OF HOSPITALITY
COCO SAFAR
Belle Epoque Design In
The World’s first Botanical Café
Restaurant
You may have the dream of being in Coco
Chanel’s apartment Paris but you can live that
dream while down in Cape Town, in Coco
Safar café, where Coco is from Coco Chanel,
all things, elegant, sophisticated and all so
posh. Safar means safari, from the Swahili
word safari.
Down to Cape Town, South Africa is a
café that has been developed to provide
the consumer with luxury multi-sensory
experience, from the packaging, to the coffee
development, smells, tastes, all provoking the
five senses of the consumer walking in to the
environment. Welcome to Coco Safar.
The interior designs are all about escapism
into other another world. This is a
multisensory lifestyle. You will feel as if you
are about to become a star, on a vintage train
stage, feeling retro chic, cinematic as the
feeling is timeless.
Inside Coco Safar, feels like you are about
to take a train journey, in a belle époque
moment, environment, while indulging your
senses in the Chocolate patisseries beautified
with an orange blossom ganache or you
can pop the Chocolate Bonbons in white,
milk and dark flavoured and hand painted
in different colours. These are eaten while
drinking on a Stellenbosch green Rooibos
capsule or Napoli coffee or you can have the
flavour named Lisbon, or whatever suits your
palate.
Coco Safar houses the world’s first Botanical
Coffee and Rooibos Brewery, the top
coffee roastery in Africa, and is a top quality
patisserie and chocolate supplier, bought
to take away or enjoyed sitting down. The
consumer will be enthralled by the Capsule
Emporium, an Espresso Bar, a Couture
Patisserie, and a Luxury Café.
The Capsule Emporium boasts an industrial-
style mezzanine library displaying the
eye-catching capsule collections, retrievable
by ladders and secured by floor-to-ceiling
oxidised-steel columns. Saddle-stitched linen
panels bring an element of timeless elegance
and hand-made finesse to the space. Nearly
everything was exclusively designed and
made in Cape Town inclusive of hand-stitched
leather seating, solid oak counters and hand-
blown light fittings.
“We have botanical mixology which is where
we brew with plant based materials. The
Rooibos tea is brewed for 76 hours or 6
days, like beer but no alcohol. Our tonics
are infused with Rooibos and we serve it
on tap like beer. You can sit by the bar and
watch the brewery doing the brews. It is a
rare experience,” said Wilhelm Liebenberg,
Co-founder of Coco Safar added Liebenberg.
“Luxury is an experience. “Everything here is
handmade, from the furniture to the coffee,
to the pastries, we do it here. Like Coco
Chanel, we are elegant and provide that
elegance through our café.”
WEBSITE: www.cocosafar.com
To add to the feel of travel is the naming
of the capsules which include Manhattan,
Napoli, Kaapstad, Havana, Stellenbosch, Saint
Tropez and upcoming names will include
Marrakesh, Jakarta, Lisbon, as their clients
come from these cities among many other
cities. Through the capsules the consumers
take a journey of drinking from a capsule that
has the name of a global city. To spread their
luxury café brand presence, Coco Safar will
open in New York in 36 months followed by
Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai or Hong Kong,
Buenos, Aires and London.
Coco Safar has also created the first air-tight,
compostable (Nespresso® compatible) coffee
and Rooibos bio-capsules in Africa. These
capsules decompose after 160 days and
must be dissolved in the ground. This is a
crucial aspect for luxury consumers who are
conscious about sustainability and protection
of the environment.
You really don’t need to get onto a plane to
Paris or Havana or Lisbon, you are fine at
Coco Safar, it has all the Coco Chanel, Eiffel
Tower, London, Havana or New York that you
will ever need. Just sip on the coffee or tea
and feel the luxury.