Ever since the 1850s, visitors have been drawn to Hermanus by the variety and abundance of food harvested from the sea. The Old Harbour provided a safe haven for the small fishing boats going out for their daily catch. For over a century, the return of the boats to the inlet at the harbour provided much excitement. Onlookers would see the fishing boats ply the heavy seas at the entrance to the harbour – waiting for a break between swells to allow them to row into the safety of the picturesque port. Visbaai, as the harbour was known in those days, was a popular place. And it was made all the more so by local legends such as Bill Selkirk, who famously caught a record-breaking 2,176lb (976kg) great white shark with a rod and line from the harbour in 1922.The building where you are dining today was the first abalone hatchery where local vet Dr Pierre Hugo began experimenting with cultivating the shellfish in 1984. Decades later, there is a clutch of thriving abalone farms in Hermanus and the wider Overstrand area.