The restaurant in South Africa’s former top luxury hotel where every item on the menu used to cost less than R2

The Three Ships Restaurant at the Carlton Hotel was the premier fine-dining experience in South Africa in the late 20th century.

A menu from the restaurant when it first opened shows that all items cost less than R2.00, with frequent visitors recalling that R15 was enough for a good meal. 

Situated inside the Carlton Hotel, the Three Ships Restaurant’s history is closely intertwined with that of central Johannesburg. 

The Carlton Hotel that still stands today, albeit empty, was not the first under this name. In 1902, mining boss Barney Barnato opened the Carlton Hotel. 

Located in central Johannesburg, this edition did not last long and quickly shut up shop amid economic struggles after the Anglo-Boer War. 

However, its allure of luxury and opulence remained. This hotel was the first on the African continent to have a telephone in every room and an early form of air conditioning. 

In the 1960s, South African Breweries (SAB) seized the opportunity to replace the old Carlton Hotel with a new one after moving its Castle Brewery out of the CBD. 

Flush with cash due to apartheid-era regulations that limited offshore investment, SAB was willing and able to fund any project that would keep its bottom line growing. 

Anglo American CEO Harry Oppenheimer caught wind of SAB’s plan and urged it to think even bigger. Oppenheimer wanted to replicate New York’s famous Rockefeller Centre. 

The two corporate giants of the time began buying five and a half city blocks for their project in Johannesburg’s CBD. This created a superblock for what became the Carlton Centre. 

Oppenheimer drove the development of the hotel, aiming for it to be a huge, world-class luxury hotel linked to a modern office building by a shopping centre. 

Opened in 1972, the thirty-storey luxury hotel quickly became known as the finest in Africa. It had 600 rooms, a rooftop pool, several restaurants, and upmarket retail stores. 

The hotel hosted many of the world’s biggest celebrities and statesmen, including Henry Kissinger, François Mitterrand, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, and Whitney Houston. 

It was also the site of a meeting between Oppenheimer and Anton Rupert to discuss South Africa’s future after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. 

However, the Carlton Hotel’s era did not last long, with the hotel unable to avoid the impact of the flight of businesses out of the Johannesburg CBD to Sandton and Rosebank. 

Anglo American closed the Carlton Hotel in December 1997, with its contents sold to the Protea Hotel at Gold Reef City. 

Today, Transnet owns the Carlton Centre, including the hotel. While the office tower is occupied, the hotel remains empty and boarded up. 

Restaurants in the Carlton Hotel

The Carlton Hotel’s luxury extended into the sphere of fine dining, with the Three Ships Restaurant being the crown jewel of its restaurants. 

From the hotel’s opening to its closure, the restaurant was known as the gold standard for luxury, gastronomy, and fine dining in Africa. 

The restaurant aimed to pay homage to South Africa’s history, taking its name from the three Dutch East India Company ships that arrived in Cape Town in 1652. 

This also informed the restaurant’s design. Located on the first floor of the hotel, it resembled the headquarters of an elite nautical captain. 

While it resembled a ship, the dining inside was luxurious. Diners would eat off custom-made fine bone crockery featuring images of the three ships. 

The interior was filled with dark wood panelling and heavy brass fittings. Plush carpeting ensured there was minimal noise to disrupt the eating. 

Dining at the Three Ships was a journey. Guests began in the Quarter Deck cocktail lounge for pre-dinner drinks before being shown to their table. 

The food on offer at the restaurant was rooted in traditional French haute cuisine, but did include South African game meats and seafood. 

Mimicking many European restaurants at the time, the meal would be finished off table-side to add to the guest’s experience. 

Meals on the menu include Roast Turkey Paysanne, Fillet of Beef with Sauce Madère, Prawns à l’Orientale, and Veal Noisette in White Wine Sauce. 

The restaurant was also famous for the dishes that it added later, such as crêpes suzette, steak tartare, chateaubriand, and flamed pepper steaks. 

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The Carlton Hotel today

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