Hotel Review: The Silo Hotel, Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town in South Africa

May 18, 2023

David Gillan enjoys a luxury stay at this unique property with panoramic city views.

If you’re a fan of modern architecture, design, art, or just the most exceptional service in a stunning location then this is the hotel for you.

Cape Town is a favourite destination for me, and this recent addition to the city's iconic skyline has been a dramatic but sympathetic conversion from a disused industrial building. If you were to show a section of the unique windows, anyone who has visited or knows Cape Town would know exactly what the picture is of. Read on to find out all about The Silo Hotel.

This certainly has to be the most unique building of any of the Royal Portfolio hotels in the small collection. Restored from an old grain silo (built in 1924 and operated for over 80 years), this Thomas Heatherwick designed hotel (who heads up the London based design and architecture studio) is in the grain elevator portion of the building.

The hotel starts on level four with the gym and spa (more on this later), with the main reception on level six along with a bar and café, then rooms start from a mezzanine level above six through to level 10. The rooftop level houses the rooftop bar, glass walled pool and a residents-only sky terrace. Meeting Tyler the operations duty manager at check in, he gave us the perfect introduction to the hotel, across all the floors, ending up on the rooftop for a glass of champagne.

The lower levels of the hotel and the other section of the building hosts the Zeitz MOCAA art museum (Museum of Contemporary Art Africa). This in itself is so worth a visit, and if you’re staying in the hotel, entrance is complimentary. The architecture is absolutely stunning; repurposed concrete and steel throughout all levels, even reusing some of the grain silo chutes as lift shafts.

There are 28 rooms and suites in total consisting of the silo room, duplex suite, deluxe superior suite, family duplex suite, royal suite and the penthouse.

We stayed in a duplex suite which was situated on the sixth and seventh floors of this amazing building. With a spacious living and dining area (and guest cloakroom) on the lower level, there was an internal staircase taking us up to an open-plan bedroom/dressing space and a full en-suite bathroom (the bath view – absolutely exceptional).

Views through their signature curved glass panelled windows were to Table Mountain and Signal Hill, as well as across the Silo district waterfront area. There was a balcony on the lower level with seating and an upper-level Juliet balcony with floor-to ceiling opening doors.

Breakfast was served in The Granary Café with just the best of views, and a unique approach to a breakfast buffet with a whole selection of fruits, yoghurt, granola, fruit, cheeses and smoked salmon being delivered to your table on a stand more akin to an afternoon tea. On top of this there was everything else to order from various egg options to a breakfast burger.

Food was also served throughout the day as well as at the rooftop restaurant/bar, with there being the Willaston Bar too on the same level as the café.

As well as the rooftop pool, there was a gym and spa floor with full-service treatments including the most extensive range of any of its sister properties with facials, signature treatments, massages and nail therapies.

With this hotel being the newest in the portfolio, the gym was the most high-tech; full of cardio and weight-training equipment. This spa also has a sauna and one of my highlights (as well as the therapeutic 90 minute tension-relief massage I had) was the reception area of the spa where a narrow, tall window gave you a glimpse into the Zeitz MOCAA building adjacent.

You’re in the heart of the downtown (Victoria and Alfred) Cape Town waterfront area, only a short walk to the main sites here (like Victoria Wharf shopping centre, the newly relocated Cape Wheel, the Waterfront Food Market) along with what feels like endless options of bars, shops and restaurants.

From the minute we checked into the Cape Grace Hotel, looking towards the unique Silo building, I wanted to find out more about its history and on finding that it was to become a Royal Portfolio hotel, I knew then I would stay there. The shimmering bulging pillowed-glass windows are so unique, but add so much to the panoramic views when you’re in the hotel.

Because of the location, with so much going on literally on the doorstep, it's probably the one hotel of the four in the group where we had less of a connection with the staff, but that's not to say they were any less special than the other hotels in the collection, it's just different having a city stay experience.

Getting there: Cape Town International (CPT) only about 25 minutes from the hotel, traffic dependent.

Address: Silo Square, Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001, South AfricaPhone: +27 21 670 0500Email: [email protected]Website: theroyalportfolio.com/the-silo-hotel

Photography courtesy (unless otherwise credited) of The Royal Portfolio/The Silo Hotel.