City guide to Johannesburg/Jo'burg (or Jozi as often called)

Nightlife
If you want to 'hit the town' on foot, Melville's Seventh Street is barfly heaven; the five-block strip offers a lively mix of good and bad restaurants, watering holes and coffee bars ranging from Rats (university students) and Xai-Xai (media types) to Statement (gay) and Buzz 9 (trendoids). A few blocks away, in Fourth Avenue, is oh!, a buzzing gay bar. Join Jo'burg buppies in action at Katzy's on Thursdays (The Firs, Rosebank, +27118803945) for live music and crowd-watching.
For club action, super-slick Kilimanjaro (The High Street, Melrose Arch, +27112144300) is home to the city's power players. The 2,000-capacity mostly-gay Bitch (Metro Centre, corner Hendrick Verwoerd Drive and Jan Smuts Avenue, Randburg, info line +2711844059164) is the club locals are referring to when asking each other 'Are you going to the club tonight?'. The funky Color Bar (44 Stanley Avenue, Milpark, +27114822038) attracts a mixed crowd, with a slant towards film, art and media types.
The Johannesburg Civic Theatre (Loveday Street, Braamfontein, +27118776800), led by Bernard Jay (once the manager of Divine, the 1980s drag icon and John Waters-created superstar), offers affordable world-class theatre productions, along with an art gallery, ballet studio and a branch of the News Cafe (+27118776847), a South African chain of slick diner-bars.




Restaurants & bars
Joburg's large immigrant communities ensure you can find an authentic version of virtually any cuisine - from Indian, Greek, Italian and Chinese to Thai, Japanese, Portuguese and Argentinian. In fact, it's probably easier to find good Italian or Portuguese food than traditional African food. Moyo (with branches in Melrose Arch, +27116841477, and at the historic Market Theatre in Newtown, +27118381715) offers Cape-to-Cairo fare with architectural flair - a sort of AfroDisney shrine to pan-African food.
Greenside is the city's premier dining district, home to an endless array of high-concept eating options. For modern Greek, there's Icon (Greenfield Road, +27116464162). Yum (26 Gleneagles Rd, +27114861645), run by celebrity chef Dario de Angeli, was voted as one of SA's top 10 restaurants. Around the corner is Addictions (137 Greenway, +27116468981), celebrated for its imaginative flair.
Mandela Square in Sandton (next to Sandton City) is lined with restaurants. A long-standing Jo'burg joke is that they all share the same kitchen. There are two exceptions: Wangthai (+27117848484), described by the Thai ambassador to South Africa as the best Thai food he's eaten outside of Thailand; and Bukhara (+27118835555); its north Indian fare has a huge following from Jo'burg's large well-heeled Indian community. For good Italian, try Al Dente (85 Grayston Drive, Sandton, +27117839989), housed in a Ferrari and Maserati showroom.
If you can't nab an invitation to a private 'braai', or barbecue, fret not. There's a decent steakhouse on almost every corner; one of the best is The Grill House (The Firs, Oxford Road, Rosebank, +27118803945).