A hip night out in the heart of the revitalised inner city of Joburg

I’ve always loved a city escape. You know, sidewalks and fountains, art, a good meal, coffee on the street, cocktails at sunset. Be it for jazz, romance, escape or connection, a hip night out feels like an urban right.

But never mind Manhattan in New York, Sandton or Cape Town – I hit my hip night out at the Reef Hotel recently, right here in Marshalltown in the Jozi CBD. It ticked all the urban escape boxes.

Once a late-1970s office block, now a 120-room 16-storey hotel, the Reef is at 58 Anderson Street, right round the corner from where I work at Jozi My Jozi in Marshalltown. Well, technically the Reef is in Ferreirasdorp, Marshalltown’s neighbour. They’re two of the oldest districts in the inner city, but the whole area is feeling distinctly upbeat.

One minute I’d snapped shut my laptop on my desk; the next minute I was 16 floors up at the Reef Hotel’s Sky Lounge with an extraordinary 360-degree view of the city, cocktail in hand, sunset loading. My trendy suite was booked for the night; later, dinner would be downstairs where the tables and chairs spill onto the street, music plays and the city twinkles.

With its Los Angeles-style murals and industrial chic decor, the Sky Lounge is an excellent place for wraparound Jozi views. An interesting crowd came and went – colleagues getting together for post-work drinks and a cheerful debrief, business travellers, solo professionals, romantic couples, groups of girlfriends.

The views are magnificent. There’s the Transnet building up close, the long slinky silver one that resembles a vintage cigarette lighter, Absa, the Hillbrow Tower, Braamfontein. And the famous so-called Hanging Building at 78 Fox Street, which was built from the top down in the late ’60s.

A faded photograph shows a concrete truck being hauled up to the top of the building during construction. The 27-storey office tower block consists of a central concrete core from which concrete and steel beams extend. The floors were suspended from these beams; a huge crane hoisted them into position.

As the sun set, the skies turned orange and the Sky Lounge bar was lit up in purple. I went downstairs to the Escape Restaurant in search of good food and cheer. It’s a warm, lively place. Dinner was from the buffet, and I ended up chilling at a table on the street, watching the passers-by and the night lights.

The rooms at the Reef are chic and comfortable. After breakfast the next morning, I took a stroll to Troy’s Café in Loveday Street, where a small New York-style bistro serves coffee on the pavement. It’s next door to the new and inspiring Asisebenze Art Gallery, opposite the historic Rand Club.

Next, a stroll down Main Street, the spine of the Marshalltown precinct, partly pedestrianised and connecting the ­magistrates’ court in the east to Gandhi Square in the west. Main Street has big trees, public art, piazzas, tink­ling fountains and a rich sense of history. Once the mining and finance district of early Johannesburg, it’s now an education hub.

It’s also an easy walk from the Reef to the Standard Bank Gallery – currently hosting an exhibition that showcases 145 masterpieces from the Johannesburg Art Gallery after their two-year tour through Europe and Asia. It’s a mix of European classical masters and seminal South African artists, from Pablo Picasso to George Pemba. DM

Bridget Hilton-Barber is a freelance writer who writes for Jozi My Jozi.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.