Review: Relais & Châteaux – a world of wine and art in the Western Cape

Cape Town is a cool city. Maybe that’s got something to do with the “Cape Doctor” wind that blows through South Africa’s Western Cape region and helps to keep a lid on temperatures in summer (our winter).

But it’s got a lot to do with the confidence of a city that feels both modern and progressive in an almost New World way, despite being located at the southern tip of the oldest of old continents.

This is a city with a burgeoning art and food scene, and the world-leading Stellenbosch wine region is easily reachable by taxi, about 90 minutes away. When I visited in September, Cape Town felt to me like a city with its eyes set firmly on the future.

MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

None of this is to downplay South Africa’s problems – they are many and well-known. But the impression I came away with was one of optimism.

The art, the food and the wine elements come together at Ellerman House – an elegant Edwardian property in an upmarket neighbourhood west of the city centre, overlooking the South Atlantic. The popular white-sand Clifton Beaches are a ten-minute walk away.

I stayed in the second of the two modern villas, next to the main house at Ellerman House. My room, which had a stand-alone bathtub by the window, offered panoramic, almost blinding, views of the sun-dappled ocean in springtime.

Each of the villas comes with a chef, who tends to the kitchen/dining room upstairs, and here you will also find a terrace with a plunge pool and more fabulous sea views.

Follow the steps down from the villa, through the gardens, and you first pass the fine-dining restaurant Curate, then the spa, both on your left, while the main house is on your right, all the way down to the expanse of lawn at the bottom.

Along the way, you will encounter myriad artworks. So big has the owners’ collection grown that a gallery has been built in the grounds and a tour of the collection is both available and recommended.

At the far end of the lawn, you come to the heated outdoor pool with its stylised leopard statue. And then we go back up the steps to the west-facing terrace – an elegant spot for an evening cocktail with live music.

Through the doors behind you, you will find Ellerman’s main restaurant, OneEighty, with its menu focused on locally sourced and sustainable produce, enjoyed in a dining-room setting.

A percentage of the hotel’s profits go towards supporting the Click Learning Foundation. Established in 2012, the charity’s mission is to improve literacy in the townships across South Africa.

I visited one of the local schools benefiting from the programme, and the children were utterly absorbed in their tailored courses, delivered on computer tablets. I have never encountered such a quiet group of kids!

Bird’s-eye view of Cape Town

The best way to see Cape Town is by helicopter with Cape Town Helicopters. Only then can you take it all in – the majesty of Table Mountain, the city and the long slivers of golden coastline. It also certainly made for an entrance for lunch.

Patron chef Peter Tempelhoff, who runs the restaurant Beyond, part of the historic wine estate Buitenverwachting, in Cape Town’s Constantia Valley, was there to meet us.

After a truly superb multi-course lunch that used many of the herbs and succulents grown in the kitchen garden (six-course tasting menu £60), there was only one way to get back to the hotel in as much – if different – style as that in which we had arrived – on the back of Harley Davidsons.

Clinging to the back of a grunting machine of American muscle allows you to see the beautiful coastline up close, always keeping an eye out, of course, for Cape Town’s diminutive penguins.

That evening, we dined at another of Tempelhoff’s fine-dining restaurants. FYN Restaurant is a trendy and popular moody modern eatery in a basement in Cape Town’s Central Business District (CBD).

The Experience Menu blends African and Japanese flavours and takes for its inspiration elements of the land and sea around South Africa. Kapokbos (a shrub) and rooibos make an appearance alongside wagyu beef, following a dish of tender springbok and ostrich.

Fyn, “fine” in Afrikaans, is a play on “fine-dining”. But it also alludes to the fynbos (“finebush”) – the fine-leaved shrubs that cover parts of the Western Cape and the canvas from which Tempelhoff creates his culinary masterpieces (£95, add £80 for wine-pairing).

Vines also cover much of the region, as testified by the excellent wines served over dinner. So, a visit to Stellenbosch, the heart and soul of the region’s winemaking, was in order.

I stayed at Delaire Graff Lodges & Spa, an upmarket hotel owned by the British founder of luxury jewellers Graff Diamonds. Like Ellerman House and FYN Restaurant, it is a member of Relais & Châteaux, the international association of independent luxury hotels and restaurants.

At Delaire Graff, the landscape and vistas are simply stunning – a mixture of undulating hills and rocky mountains. At dusk, the light is particularly evocative. The hotel is very much a retreat and a visit to the spa is a must.

In other words, Delaire Graff is the ideal place to relax, whether in the high-end Japanese-inspired restaurant Hoseki, on the massage table or beside the infinity private pool at your modern and stylish bijoux villa – admiring the view, with a glass of something special.

Chris was a guest of Relais & Châteaux of which Ellerman House, Delaire Graff Lodges & Spa and FYN Restaurant are members. Rates at Ellerman House from £800 a night in the low season (May to the end of September). Rates at Delaire Graff Lodges & Spa from £1,320 a night.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.