Babel is surrounded by an enormous edible garden, which offers its bounty to the beautiful menu.
Most people get to know about Babel Restaurant through magazines that have words such as house, home, garden, country and sometimes maison and casa in their titles. It is not surprising, given the dazzling aesthetics of the place.
Situated on the historic wine estate of Babylonstoren with its gabled, thatched Cape Dutch manor house dating back to 1777, the estate encompasses a hotel, two restaurants (Babel and a tearoom in a magnificent iron and glass greenhouse), vineyards and wine cellar. Also open to the public are a bakery, charcuterie and cheese dairy.
But the star attraction is the 3.25-hectare edible garden with more than 300 varieties of fruit and vegetables from tropical pineapples and vanilla to a labyrinth of desert prickly pears. Its keepers are fond of variety — so you’ll find many of most things — such as five types of aubergine, 19 cultivars of peach and 11 kinds of fig.
The garden boasts an apple tree stemming from Sir Isaac Newton’s family home, and an olive tree from the Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem. There is also a roman chamomile lawn on which my dining partner, Munchkin, took a barefoot walk.
All the produce is consumed by the residents on the farm or by visitors to the restaurants.
Autumn-ripening quince is now in season. Quince trees were first planted in the Cape by Jan van Riebeeck. As with all garden pantries, there are gluts of things, so quince featured prominently on the menu.
An aesthetic eye
Babel is a modern space, though sympathetically designed to keep in with the old Cape architecture. Glass sidings abut original limewashed pillars; transparent Philippe Starck and white Luxembourg chairs pull up to wooden tables, and white lacquer Kartell tables stand over farm benches. From garden to plate, an aesthetic eye is always governing.
Even the menu is beautiful. It is divided into four sections: for starters there are salads, each based on a colour — red, green and yellow; then the day’s specials, written up on a white tiled wall with a drawing of an enormous bull’s head; mains under the heading “from our good farmers”; and desserts divided into bitter, sour, savoury and sweet.
You come away from Babel having feasted much more than your eyes. It also leaves one determined to eat far more freshly plucked, healthy food.
Babel at Babylonstoren Wine Farm, Simondium Road, Klapmuts. Tel: 021 863 3852.
Fully Stort by Brent Meersman in the Mail & Guardian
