Nobody comes to Zinkwazi for the restaurant scene, and that is part of the point. There are no chains, no strip of tables along the beachfront and nothing open late. Zinkwazi restaurants come down to a lagoon-side restaurant, a beach bar with a grill, a pizza container, and a kitchen on Nkwazi Drive turning out the curries people talk about on the drive home.
Between them they cover a week comfortably, as long as you know when each one is open. Here is what each place is like, what to order, when to go, and where to drive when you want more choice.
Raffia at Zinkwazi Lagoon Lodge
Raffia is the village's sit-down restaurant, on the sundeck of Zinkwazi Lagoon Lodge with the lagoon and the sea a few metres away. If you are looking for the Zinkwazi Lagoon Lodge restaurant, this is it.
It is open every day from 8am to 8pm, and until 9pm on Saturdays, so it works for breakfast, a long lunch after the beach or an early dinner. Friday and Saturday evenings fill in December and July, so call ahead on 032 485 3344 if you are coming in season.
The lodge itself has a pub and a boma, and Zinkwazi Lagoon Lodge is also where the village campsite and the padel court are, so a meal here often turns into an afternoon.
The Ski Boat Club
The Ski Boat Club is the village's front room: a pub and grill on the main beach, next to the car park where the boats launch. Its bar goes by Mahogany Reef, and the deck is about 20 metres from the sand.
Thursday is the night to know about. Happy hour runs from 4pm to 6pm with drink specials, and it is when you will meet half the village. Staying midweek? Plan around it.
Lunch at the Ski Boat Club, a swim, and pizza from the container on the way home. For plenty of people that is the perfect day here, and it costs very little.
Proud's Pizzas
Proud's is the pizza place everyone in Zinkwazi has an opinion about, and the opinion is usually good.
On Google it is open daily from 10:30am to 7:30pm. Proud's also delivers within Zinkwazi for a R50 surcharge, usually in 30 to 40 minutes and up to an hour in the busy summer weeks, which makes it the easiest dinner in the village after a long beach day. Order early on a December Saturday.
Tyan's Curries
Tyan's Curries is the one locals recommend quietly, as if it were a secret.
Google lists Tyan's as open from 8am to 9pm Monday to Thursday, until 10pm on Friday and Saturday, and from 9am to 8pm on Sunday. Phone ahead on 082 403 5395 to order, collect on your way back from the beach, and eat it on your own stoep. It is one of the better meals you will have on this coast.
Coffee, breakfast and a hotel dinner
For coffee, the café on Glen Drive opens at 7am every day and does breakfast and light meals until 5:30pm (5pm on Sundays). It also keeps a small shop for the milk, bread and snacks you forgot, which is useful in a village with no supermarket.
The other sit-down option is the restaurant at ANEW Hotel Ocean Reef on the beachfront, which serves breakfast through to dinner and has a children's menu. It is the place to go when you want a hotel breakfast without cooking, or a quiet dinner overlooking the sea.
Eating in: braai, delivery and stocking up
Most visitors to Zinkwazi self-cater, and most evenings end at a braai on the stoep. For the braai itself, The Local on Nkwazi Drive is a shop selling local produce: seasonal vegetables, quality meat and dairy, homemade bread, and jars of things like fig jam and sauerkraut from local makers.
There is no supermarket, petrol station or ATM in the village. Do the big shop in KwaDukuza, about 15 to 20 minutes down the N2, before you turn off. Between Proud's delivering, Tyan's cooking and a fridge full from the drive in, you can go days without needing a table anywhere.
The houses are built for this kind of holiday. Self-catering in Zinkwazi Beach means a proper kitchen and a braai area at almost every property.
Eating out with children
Zinkwazi is a family village, and the places to eat reflect it. At the Ski Boat Club, children play on the beach in front of the deck while the adults eat, which is about as relaxed as a family lunch gets. Raffia is inside the Lagoon Lodge, which has a swimming pool and a playground with a trampoline, so children have somewhere to go while the food comes.
The ANEW hotel restaurant has a children's menu, and Proud's is the easy win for fussy eaters: a pizza each, eaten on the beach wall, and nobody has to sit still. For very small children, a takeaway from Tyan's eaten at home is often the calmest dinner of the week.
Sundowners
The best drink in Zinkwazi is the one you have as the light goes. The Ski Boat Club deck faces the main beach and fills up from late afternoon, Raffia's deck looks over the lagoon, and the pub at the Lagoon Lodge is the quieter option when the beach bar is busy.
Plenty of locals simply take a cooler box down to the lagoon edge or Black Rock Park, with its shaded picnic spot above the beach, and watch the fish eagles come in. It costs nothing, and nobody minds.
When places are open, and when they are not
Zinkwazi keeps early hours. Kitchens close early: Proud's at 7:30pm, Raffia at 8pm, and the café at 5:30pm. The Ski Boat Club shuts on Monday and Tuesday, and nothing serves food late. If you arrive after dark on a Monday, have something in the car.
December and the July school holidays are the opposite problem: everything is open and everything is full. Book Raffia, order Proud's early, and expect the Ski Boat Club to be three deep at the bar. In May, September and early November the same places are quiet, and you will have the deck to yourself.
Hours above come from each business's Google listing, and small places change them with the seasons. Check before you drive over.
A short drive for more choice
Blythedale Beach, a little to the south, has its own handful of places, and the Blythedale Beach restaurants are worth the drive when you want a change. The most memorable way to reach one of them is on foot: walk south along the beach from Zinkwazi for 12 to 13 kilometres and finish at Grumpy's Bush and Beach Restaurant for cold drinks and seafood. Arrange a lift back.
Inland, Darnall's country club does a Sunday carvery that has been a fixture for years, and the views over the course and the sea are the reason to eat at the golf club restaurant at Prince's Grant.
For real variety, the KwaDukuza restaurants range from curry houses to grills, 15 to 20 minutes away.
Ballito, about half an hour south, has far more choice, and the Ballito restaurants are sorted by cuisine and area.
Between meals, there are the things to do in Zinkwazi Beach: the lagoon, the forest trails and a long, quiet beach.
Frequently asked questions
Published October 5, 2026
