Humble Coffee, Surf Riders, Dough Girl — it’s love at second bite in Durban

Fine dining, casual dining, pavement dining. Tradition, religion and heritage. Durban may not be foodie utopia, but variety flavoured by cultural diversity is the dominant spice. And there are contrasting gems.

Nowhere better does the idiosyncratic nature of this port and resort city reflect than in the gastro experience. A new eatery will launch with the pomp and circumstance of a big advance-notice advertising budget. Gone in six months! I’ve watched this happen time and again.

Word of mouth is what cooks here. With personalised, often quirky social media to back it up.

This fuels success in what, no argument, is SA’s most liveable city. Where even the upscale is seldom pretentious. How could it be with our balmy winters, steamy summer, the ocean ceaselessly vying for our attention and our electric eclectic cultural mix?

The focus of this story is a creative, out-of-the-box, women-powered triumvirate. Different boxes. Each unique, high-energy, charismatic, entrepreneurial.

All three have proved beyond the pudding that they give us food worth eating. Menus worthy of repeat visits. Plus, plus… so over to them.

Samantha “Chef Sam” Small-Shaw has been a tour de force at Durban’s South Beach for several years. While other eateries along the Golden Mile (be at the beachfront at sunrise to experience the aptness of this name) have come and gone, Surf Riders Café has retained its reputation for “just good chow”, their motto. Exceptionally good chow, their reputation. This, ranging from their legendary whole roasted fish to the over-the-top simplicity of their deluxe double espresso milkshake.

Now the folks at Umhlanga are celebrating the arrival of a grander Surf Riders. Similar gorgeous sea views. This time of year, even whale spotting while you chow and chat. And from before opening day just a couple of months ago (it is still a work in progress), more people than you can believe have been making their way there. [Chef Sam features in this TGIFood Umhlanga story for a good backgrounder read.]

Meanwhile, remarkable Durban pastry chef Courtney Stuart, who burst forth with the original Dough Girl in 2019 when she was just 20 (read the story here), opened her third rendition of Dough Girl in Hillcrest around Easter. On the first day, fans queued and cupboards were bare by 11.30am. The next day, they doubled up “and still, we were sold out by noon. It was brutal,” she chuckles appreciatively. And so the story continues.

And Amy Gardiner? Read our 2022 TGIFood article here on how her Humble Coffee adventure began.

Gardiner started Humble Coffee as a roastery. Sourcing and selling small-batch beans of great, sustainably grown coffee, origins known, was her intention at the start. The location, back then, was a kind of warehouse space in an industrial part of Durban near Umgeni Road where you were more likely to take your vehicle for an engine fix than yourself for a caffeine charge.

But the people came. And they wanted more than coffee.

Culinary magic began to happen. Fast-forward less than three years from when she opened, in September 2019, and wow. Caffeine wallop. Humble Coffee, Gardiner and her all-women team were named SA’s Café of the Year by Coffee Magazine. A second “café of the year” and other awards followed.

When we wrote about Humble in TGIFood in early 2022, Gardiner’s menu offered options for breakfast, for brunch, for lunch. Many for vegans. The small selection of pastries were mainly freelancer contributions.

“This is all so unexpected,” she said back then, referring to the almost immediate extraordinary popularity of the place. “Even as we grew, I pictured us more as a weekday grab-a-bowl, office and working space kind of place. I can’t explain to you how random it is, like I never expected to be doing pancake stacks and French toast on Saturdays and Sundays for tables of eight or nine people.

“I’ll sometimes be standing and looking and I’ll say to Smiley (Ngcobo, long-time Humble barista), why are these people here? Where have they come from?”

In April 2025, Gardiner shuttered the old place and opened her new Humble. Airy, cool and trendy. Great Morningside location, indoor and outdoor seating options, herb garden, kiddie play area. The Humble Hatch for grab-and-go coffee. A dedicated retail space for her Humble coffee beans, Happy Hippy honey, book selection, “Be Kind” peak caps and T-shirts.

Another dedicated space, large, for Humble’s head baker, Princess Manyala, and her assistant Anele Mashawu (who both previously worked with Durban’s erstwhile [for a while] doyenne of baking, Margaret Wasserfall). All pastries, cakes and cookies are baked in house.

Not surprisingly, there is a spanking new roastery for Gardiner to work her magic with the beans. And as before, no meat, gelatine or alcohol, so Halaal-friendly choices.

Given all this, one wondered why Gardiner seemed amazed, bewildered, even a little stunned at the instant popularity given the magnetic vibe of her obscure previous location.

“It’s been relentless. A marathon. Not one of us has had time to sit down for a pee, let alone a bite of lunch,” she told me, a hint of breathlessness tempered by humour and equanimity (and that remarkable composure) sometime during the first week.

She had done 23,000 steps the day I swung by the second or third week. 

“Often it has been 29,000,” she laughed. Before dashing outside to chase a vervet monkey, then reseat a guest, deliver several orders to tables and head into the scullery to wash dishes. Newbie customers sometimes need to be told that at Humble, you order at the counter and settle your bill at the counter.

For me this is a Humble delight. Nobody hovering, repeatedly asking if you’re ready to order, offering coffee before you’ve had a chance to sit down. Just friendly and professional waiting staff delivering your food and, when it’s time, taking your plates.

Down the street, another Durban café owner, baker and creative cook, Peter Venter at his French-themed gem, Bread: Artisan Bakery and Bistro, is happy. As happens, customers beget community, which in turn brings more people. 

“We’ve benefitted from Humble coming here,” he tells me when I pop in to ask him. Bacon lovers and meat eaters especially, he says. (He also makes the best Moroccan mince pies.)

Meanwhile, Humble is as Humble does. Food that is fresh, simple, simply delicious. Many items, even the eggs, are delivered by someone on a list longer than Gardiner’s arm of carefully selected small suppliers.

Just as when I quizzed her at her more humble Humble, all those years ago, there is delight and a trace of wonderment in Gardiner’s voice when she talks about her place, her café vibe, which matches her intentional philosophy.

As she told me back then, amplified now: “From the beginning I said I wanted everybody who walked through the door to feel welcome. I don’t know if you know but in Sweden they have a term. It’s, like, there is ‘hem’ and then there is ‘hemma’. ‘Hem’ is, like, your house, and ‘hemma’ is, like, the feeling you get when you’re home, when you’re relaxed in your house, when you’re safe.” 

She’s worked the magic. I feel welcome, on arrival, on lingering. But then, of course, she can only do so much. Your feelings are your choice and reflect your personality.

The bit I can vouch for is the “everybody who walks through the door” part. Because, it would seem, everybody does.

The dozen or so times I’ve been to the new Humble, to have a coffee, meet a friend, hang out with my laptop, the most striking thing is always to find more diversity in one place than I’ve seen anywhere else in Durban. Friends, acquaintances, familiars, strangers, folks that I associate with all the different faces of the city’s variegated cultural, artistic, vocational, age diversity, I see at Humble. And it’s not even my neighbourhood go-to.

Courtney Stuart’s success run started when, prepped, baking, ready to roll and just 20 years old, with a passion for pastry and a head for business that had bankrolled two overseas trips while she was still at school, after graduating from Jackie Cameron School of Food & Wine, she opened Dough Girl on Durban’s Berea. Her mom, Sam Stuart, her early pastry inspiration, was there to help. And from the start, Zamo “Mr Zee” Nkwanyana, barista supremo, was her front of house pastry partner while doing cool things with Bluebird Coffee.  

A few complained when the daily stash, made hands-on and in small batches, ran out. But others celebrated that at last the city had the closest thing to a true patisserie. Perfect pastries from an artisanal bakery. Just get there early. And keep an eye on their social media for the remarkable creative interpretations made with integrity using the best ingredients.

From the early days Stuart said she would, at some point, open somewhere she could add brekker and brunches and more of a café ambience, with seating. And this she did a couple of years ago when her lease ended.

She moved to a house, stylishly modified to give her a bakery for the pastries, a hot kitchen for the brekker and lunch items and indoor and outside seating for the growing multitude of fans who loved her sweet and creative focus, and the beautiful pastries and the fun vibe this dynamic young whirlwind of energy and humour brings to the party.

When unexpected issues arose out of the blue, involving her lease, she did another turnabout. Quicker than it takes to ice a cake, she opened her new Dough Girl in Hillcrest, intentionally cocking a snook at traditional pastry pastels and going for black with fun and stylish design motifs.

And after her twirl with conventional (albeit creative) breakfast and lunch options, she returned to her first love, pastries. 

“We’re done with the hot kitchen!”

She has, I won’t say “gone back”, because that’s not the nature of her success. But she is reaffirming her passion for pastry and for baking. And being inventive with a lot of savoury options. 

“Breakfasty” pastries, she calls them. This in response to the commuter culture in her new neck of the woods. Also the gym and cycling lifestyle more prevalent in that neighbourhood.

Of course the focus, still, is on her sublime croissant pastries, both the conventional “standards” and the ever-changing indulgences she dreams up, which so often look excessive. But then you bite in and appreciate the amazing touch of the true pasty artist. They look, they are, decadent but never overly sweet. 

“Yesterday was mental,” she tells me, rolling her eyes, laughing, when I go to see how she’s doing on Day Two at Dough Girl “three” and ask her about Day One (when they opened). 

“Today we doubled up. And again we had double the number of people we prepared for, so today was mental, too.”

Happily mental, one fathoms, as she talks appreciatively about her staff, who moved with her. Olivia Malan, her main pastry chef and a fellow Jackie Cameron graduate. “Mr Zee”, who had noted that people in Hillcrest were asking for a darker roast, so that was on the cards. The great front-of-house staff, who have a riot creating fun stuff with Stuart that goes onto social media.

Stuart, herself, is mainly on the creativity side, she says, cooking up the speciality flavours, the new ideas. Doing the social media. 

“And I jump in when someone is not here.”

She expected the first three months, she told me back then, to be brutal, “like a moshpit”. This from the young woman who, before she got married in 2024, when explaining the Howick farm she and her then wife-to-be had chosen as their venue, said: “It’s kind of like The Twilight Zone. But you’re a bit old, you probably won’t know that.” Fuelling her success? That she is an unfiltered, spontaneous delight?

My first time at Surf Riders Umhlanga was for brunch with a friend who lives there. She had in the past lamented that the previous eatery in this prime spot had no redeeming feature other than the gorgeous setting. 

“I’d bring overseas friends here and feel embarrassed, telling them to forgive the food, the service, everything about the place — but it was worth a visit for the view.”

Now she was happy as we sat in a prime spot, outdoors, shaded by an umbrella, as Chef Sam, unmistakable in her red “YES CHEF” cap, dashed about, keeping a handle on things, brunch time on a busy Saturday.

Known for her energy, effervescence, enthusiasm, creative charisma around food, everything made from scratch (the waiting time is explained on the menu), her menu is seasonal and evolving. And that day my Turkish eggs, poached eggs with Greek yoghurt, feta, cumin chilli butter and naan bread, were perfect.

The crunchy panko fish burger with kimchi slaw and chargrilled pineapple served with fries is a lovely light lunch. Ditto the equally creative soft shell crab burger. Or opt for Chef Sam’s speciality menu. People rave about her mussel and prawn dish. Then there’s the Korean brioche toastie, the Japanese-inspired udon noodles, or if you’re truly hungry, the Tomahawk steak, flame-grilled with garlicky bone marrow. You get the gist. Menus are online. DM

Check out the Surf Riders website and follow Surf Riders on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out the Humble Coffee website and follow Humble Coffee on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out the Dough Girl website and follow Dough Girl on Instagram and Facebook. 

Follow Wanda Hennig on Instagram.