Our last night in wine country was in the north of Stellenbosch where the lands are flatter and mountains loom to the east. Babylonstoren (meaning "Tower of Babylon") is a quaint property with simple accommodations in Afrikaans/Dutch style housing some of which is very historic ranging up to villas which are modern and luxurious. We settled into our cottage and then headed off to dinner in the restaurant called BABEL!
There is an outdoor courtyard and indoor seating (we chose that as the rain threatened) and we chose the various menu items we would share and then our mains.
We started with the Babylonstoren Viognier '22/'23 which I had tasted earlier and loved, but Will had skipped the tasting and needed to enjoy this lovely wine. We moved on to a Candide 2024, another one of those fabulous blends (
I should explain that Babylonstoren is a working farm with over 800 employees and even a complete water buffalo farm for the purpose of milking the largest herd in Africa!
Our server Stephanie brought us a beautiful plate of Lemon Cucumbers from the farm as well as homemade Rosemary Sourdough with Farm Butter made with honey and dusted with Lavender Powder! Following these Mission Figs and Eve(a type I had never heard of) Figs arrived for us to savor, also from the farm, of course.
The farm is also known for its cow herds and they raise CHIANINA which is an Italian breed, so I had to try the CHIANINA BEEF TARTARE & TANNIE LEONIE's HEN's EGG & Garden Radish. It was a tasty dish indeed with toasted super thin sourdough to scoop up the yummy tartare and gooey raw egg after we broke it atop the super lean beef. We had not had oysters in South Africa so Will tried a dozen of the SALDANHA which are local from the Cape but apparently out of season. They were extremely salty and briny and came with a large citron-like lemon to squeeze on them with a huge cherokee purple heirloom-style tomato also in cheesecloth to squeeze over for tomato water...a novel idea and fun.
Norman;s Line Fish of the Day was Yellowtail and it was superbly cooked with super-crispy skin and served with "Summer Marrows." the local term for zucchini squash as well as a Smoked Tomato (from the farm) Concasse. We had heard that the local smoked trout was amazing and asked for a taste. Stephanie brought an entire plate which would have covered a 1/2 dozen bagels and we did taste it and adored it, but felt horrible that she brought so much! We ordered the side of Heirloom Moestuin Beetroots with Garden Herb Aioli and again it was a huge portion so we picked at the fabulous local beets and then decided to try the cheese for dessert "From Our Neighbour's Farm" served with Fynbos Honeycomb, Pear Chutney and Crisp lavash. The cheese, alas, came right from the fridge and was so cold it lacked taste. There was a chili brie, a goat, a camembert, "Huegenote" and a barely blue cheese.
The next morning at breakfast after our tour of the water buffalo farm we were treated to water buffalo butter, yogurt, mozzarella, ricotta and more which was a real treat as well.
