A culinary cruise around South Africa, with our restaurant columnist Martin Williams
As a restaurateur, January is the perfect time of year to take a holiday; exhausted from the efforts put in to maximise Christmas business. As an entrepreneur with M, and whilst leading Gaucho, it’s a period when, after setting objectives for the months ahead, I found myself twiddling my thumbs, second guessing and over-thinking business strategies as I waited for everyone to return from sun or ski.
Thus my strategy has been to head off somewhere sunny to relax and reset. South Africa offers luxury hotels, outstanding restaurants and plenty of wineries for lazy, late summer afternoons tasting the gifts of Bacchus. With a minimal time difference, you can take a direct night flight to Cape Town in South Africa and hit the ground running in Stellenbosch and beyond.
I’ve taken this trip with my wife several times over the past decade, discovering dozens of great hospitality options. Here are my personal recommendations of where to eat, drink, sleep and repeat, which I have returned to again and again.
The best places to eat, drink and sleep in South Africa
Cape Town, Camps Bay, Hout Bay
Jim Brett, the former CEO of J Crew, created Future Found Sanctuary, the jewel of which is Villa Verdi, his architecturally divine, modern, six bedroom home. It’s now a boutique hotel where you can chill by the ample pool and enjoy the pleasures of a private butler and chef. Hout bay is also a great starting point for a Cape break.
If Camps Bay takes your fancy, The Twelve Apostles is hard to ignore, especially for the spectacular sunsets over giant sea rocks. The Marley Hotel is also great; the rooftop pool attracts a younger, more vibrant crowd and is right in the mix.
Cape Town central offers a safe and vibrant scene at The Waterfront, where the one and only and Silo hotels would be my top pick. Regardless of your choice, it’s easy to get around by Uber, meaning you can visit the wonderful restaurants without worrying about parking.
The Food Barn, Noordhoek
After you have driven or cycled up and over Chapmans peak, Noordhoek awaits. Bring an appetite to chef Franck Dangereux’s food village and restaurant. The maverick Frenchman has a three Michelin starred background and in 1996 founded La Colombe restaurant in nearby Constancia, which has sat in the Worlds’ 50 Best ever since.
The Food Barn is very casual, filled with yummy mummies and surfer-gear clad dads. The menu is equally relaxed, curated through daily deliveries and Franck’s mood, but the quality remains Michelin level and offers an epic selection of small plates. We had lunch with the very charming Franck last week when he treated us to some of his signature dishes; my favourites were a tuna and red prawn tartar, along with a lightly seared venison fillet, plated with blueberries, perfectly caramelised peaches and a rosti, served with Ken Forrester’s ‘Custard Pie’ Chenin Blanc 2024.
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Salon
Over the past few years I’ve been lucky enough to visit chef Luke Dale Roberts’ The Pot Luck Club and Fledgling restaurants, both housed in the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock. Each were innovative and outstanding, the latter being a worthy social enterprise model that takes underprivileged young chefs into an environment of excellence, nurturing the next wave of talent.
Salon is Luke’s most elegant offering; the staff knowledge and passion in all his venues is outstanding, but is elevated for this tasting menu only venue. Michelin haven’t been to South Africa yet, but when they raise themselves from their Parisian chaise-longues and jump on a flight, they will be delighted and should be gifting both Dale Roberts and Dangereux with recognition for their respective genius.
Highlights of the twelve course tasting menu were a Singaporean-inspired langoustine chilli with smoked tomato sauce, and a remarkably unctuous play on duck suzette, both accompanied by Hamilton Russel Pinot Noir 2022 (the finest Hemel en Aarde Pinot to be found). The tasting menu was £80 per person and exemplifies the incredible value seen on the Western Cape.
Stellenbosch
And so to Stellenbosch; one of the greatest wine regions in the world and set up as such to cater for top tastings, divine dining and hot hotel stays.
Clouds is a beautiful and reasonably priced hotel comprising a dozen suites, with outstanding views over Tokara, Graff and Thelema vineyards, all of which are worth visiting for tastings of their wonderful wines and/or lunches.
Delaire Graff additionally boasts a new super-luxe Japanese restaurant Hoseki and ‘money can’t buy’ hotel suites. You can even stay there if you have no budget restraints. Either way, the view at sunset is worth a million dollars.
For a dinner almost as good as Hoseki at a tenth of the price, I recommend heading into the centre of town to Spek and Bone, a world of rare South African wines and a menu fuelled by Big Green Eggs and skilful smoking; fantastic menu options throughout.
96 Winery Road
A great value guesthouse option, offering tastings at Ken Forrester’s vineyard, where one can easily while away an afternoon, working your way through the ‘King of Cheunin’s’ portfolio (much of which is available in the UK). My favourite of Ken’s wines include Dirty Little Secret, the best ‘natural wine’ ever made, Sparklehorse, a sparkling chenin, which delights as an aperitif, and FMC (F*cking Marvelous Chenin as it is known in the trade), which, grape varietals aside, is often mistaken for the finest of Burgundy.
The onsite restaurant is certainly worth a visit, regardless of whether you are lodging. Ken has hosted me there many times and laughed at my sunburn this week as he fed us a feast, which started with modern interpretations of calamari, tuna tartaki and burrata, alongside vintages from his wine library going back to 1957.
Wagyu is the hero here; Ken smuggled some Kobe DNA across to SA from Japan in the 1990s and bred it into his Dexter herd. He now rears fields of full blood wagyu and offers a variety of cuts to accompany his red wines. My favourite is named Renegade, a fitting label for a legendary man, who will leave a true legacy for the Cape’s wine scene.
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Babylonstoren
Imagine a turkey standing in a yard listening to classical music, shadowed by three donkeys who are munching on fallen quince, as visitors walk past on a pathway of cut lavender to sample freshly milked ‘buffalo cappuccinos’ as they walk around 500 acres of fruit, vines and farmland, modelled around the biblical concept of Babylon, and you are just beginning to understand this magical venue. Babylonstoren is Daylesford or Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons on creatine.
At the hotel, I recommend staying in the Farmhouse, where you share a lounge, an all-inclusive bar, extensive spa and pleasant pool with the guests of six other suites. It’s about £1,000 a night, but it’s a genuine once-in-a-lifetime experience that amplifies all your senses and achieves a unique mix of humble luxury.
The wines are great; my favourites are the viognier and shiraz. You can pick up most of the range at those Saffa wine shops at Victoria and Kings Cross, or take a trip out to their equally expensive sister hotel The Newt, in Somerset. Again, these wines are found on good restaurants wine lists – keep an eye out for them.
The on-farm winery and tasting tours are among the best I’ve come across; if the hotel isn’t in your budget, a day trip will be near the top of your fondest holiday memories.
Babel is the main restaurant, where I can promise you will enjoy one of the best hotel breakfasts on the planet (including freshly gathered honey from the hives, and fruits and juices from the farm). By night Babel offers farm-to-fork dining in its most authentic and quality expression. Think of elements of Smithfields’ St John’s combined with Wild Tavern in Chelsea or Trinity in Clapham and you are starting to get your head around the gastro-pleasures that await you.
Journeys End
A 30 minute drive out of Stellenbosch, sits journeys End in False Bay, a magnificent vineyard and tasting room that exemplifies how wine companies can have a true social purpose. It’s a B-Corp awarded winery, carbon negative in practice, with numerous projects to support and develop the local workers and community. Expect top notch wines you can enjoy safe in the knowledge that they taste outstanding and make the world a better place.
Conscious drinking redefined, you can pick up a bottle at Waitrose and on most good restaurant wine lists.
Find out more about visiting South Africa at southafrica.net