24 hours of excellence

We had a mini break last weekend to celebrate Paul’s birthday in the most amazing style at Babylonstoren, about 45 minutes outside Cape Town. I think I’ve been ruined for ever by this brief taste of the luxe life. Ruined, but also pretty inspired.

Babylonstoren is a Cape Dutch farmstead dating from 1690 that has, in recent years, been taken over by ex-Elle Decoration editor, Karen Roos, and her husband, Koos Bekker, who have turned it into a place of beauty and excellence, the likes of which I don’t often encounter.

On the farm, between the garden and the vines, is a row of old workers’ cottages under old oaks that have been rebuilt and redecorated to the most exacting and exquisite standards, and Paul and I spent the night here. The rooms are beautiful, and none of my pics really did them justice, so click here for a slideshow. But despite all the sophistication and attention to detail, there’s an atmosphere of informality – probably because Babylonstoren is also a working farm – which makes it a really relaxing stay.

The menu at Babel, the restaurant on the farm, is supplied by the vegetables and fruit that are grown in the 2 acre formal garden. The Babylonstoren blog keeps you up-to-date with day to day happenings in the garden and elsewhere on the farm. Walking through the garden, delighted by the sights, shapes, smells and sheer planning brilliance, I felt I was walking through somebody’s dream made reality. See images and a plan of the formal garden here.

Paul and I don’t eat meat, but we certainly didn’t go hungry. We ate cauliflour stacks, gorgonzola omelettes, chocolate and olive pudding, and more, all presented beautifully, and almost all of it either grown, baked, laid, made, or brewed on the farm, or sourced locally, and surprisingly affordable too. Definitely, without a doubt, worth a visit. Read more about the food at Babel here.

What more to say? I felt so fortunate, not only to have stayed in such a beautiful place and eaten so extraordinarily well, but to have experienced a moment in the flowering of such an exquisitely executed vision. I can’t wait to visit the garden in Springtime, to taste the wine currently maturing in barrels, to see the smokehouse, bakery and mampoer still that are still being built, and whatever other dreams are to become real at Babylonstoren.