As soon as we burst through the doors of Dias Tavern, my friend and colleague Niq Mhlongo reared back like a startled horse and said: "No, I can’t fly all the way from Joburg to sit on a plastic chair in a restaurant in Cape Town. Let’s go find another place." The sentiment was shared by another colleague, Sibongile Fisher, who also was not enamoured of the idea of having a meal at what appeared to her a dodgy place with plastic chairs and bad music.

"Forget the décor and concentrate on the food," I said. "You won’t regret it. They serve world-class Portuguese food here." I was speaking from experience, having been to the restaurant two years before with a circle of academics from different parts of the world...

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