One fine morning a year or two ago, at an open-air counter in the Maboneng precinct of Johannesburg, South Africa, an elegant lady served me one of the world’s more perfect cappuccinos.
In the willfully sentimental way of travelers in search of stories, I imagined a whole biography for her—maybe she’d brought her family’s La Marzocco machine all the way from Rome in a steamer trunk. With its dour fortified compounds, Brutalist skyscrapers, and acrid mine-tailing hills, Johannesburg doesn’t beguile the visitor like its relentlessly picturesque counterpart, Cape Town. So in Maboneng I was glad to find galleries, food trucks, sidewalk cafés, street art, cool cars, an artisanal craft market, the David Adjaye–designed Hallmark House hotel, and the Museum of African Design (located in a former auto-body shop). A sign bearing the name of the neighborhood swung in a graceful catenary curve, exactly like the famous one in Venice Beach, California. Feeling caffeinated and expansive, I remarked to the coffee lady on Maboneng’s charm. Thank you, she said, because her son had developed pretty much all of it. Some days she liked to sit at the coffee stand just to keep an eye on things.
This story is from the April 2017 edition of Travel+Leisure.
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This story is from the April 2017 edition of Travel+Leisure.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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