MalandraBushveld Lodge Check availability

Dining

Cooked over coals, from the valley.

The kitchen works with what the farms around Vaalwater are growing that week, and with fire. There is no menu to choose from at breakfast or lunch. There is always a choice at dinner.

A long oak table on the terrace at dusk, set with linen, clay candle holders, stoneware and wine glasses, the valley turning blue beyond
Dinner on the terrace, most nights from September to April.

Where you’ll eat

Wherever the evening is.

The fire circle at blue hour, lanterns on the sandstone
At the fire. On cold nights, dinner comes to the fire circle: one pot, passed round.
A suite deck with a plunge pool and sala in the late sun
On your deck. A table for two, set while you’re at the fire, and no one in sight.
The wine room: oak shelving of bottles, a leather reading chair and a single warm lamp
In the wine room. Ten seats, one long table, for a tasting or a birthday.
A linen blanket and cushions under a wild fig on a sandstone outcrop, with a basket and plates of bread, cheese and fruit
Under a wild fig. Lunch carried out to the rocks, if you’d rather not come back.

A day at the table

Five times, roughly.

A clay cup of coffee and a linen napkin on a sandstone ledge above a hazy valley at sunrise

  1. Early coffee

    Brought to your suite before the walk, with rusks from the kitchen.

  2. Breakfast

    On your terrace or in the main pavilion: fruit, yoghurt, bread from the oven, eggs any way, and boerewors if you ask.

  3. Lunch

    Light and from the garden: salads, a tart, cold meats, something cooked on the coals.

  4. Sundowners

    Out on the rocks, or wherever the drive ends: gin and tonic, biltong, the cliffs going red.

  5. Dinner

    Three courses, with a choice at each, and wine chosen to go with them.

A dinner in October

To begin

Ember-roasted butternut, Waterberg honey, dukkah

or

Beetroot-cured trout, buttermilk, dill

From the fire

Karoo lamb, wild garlic, charred greens

or

Hand-rolled pasta, Magoebaskloof mushrooms, aged Gouda

To finish

Malva pudding, Amarula custard

or

Naartjie sorbet, rooibos shortbread

Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and halaal meals on request. Tell us when you book, and the kitchen will plan around you rather than adapt for you.

From above: wedges of ember-roasted butternut with dukkah, hazelnuts and mint in a handmade clay bowl, beside a linen napkin and an old silver fork on oak

The cellar

Sixty wines, mostly from small cellars.

A short list from the Swartland, Stellenbosch, the Hemel-en-Aarde and a few places you won’t have heard of, chosen by the head chef and our sommelier on long drives south. The house wines are included in every stay; the cellar list is modestly priced.

Ask for a tasting in the wine room on any afternoon. It is the coolest room on the ridge.

An afternoon tasting in the wine room: three glasses of red, a bottle and a stoneware jug, bread and hard cheese on an old oak table, sandstone and cellar shelves behind Oak shelves of wine in the wine room, with a leather chair and a brass lamp

Stay with us

Two nights, or a week. The valley keeps.

Rates are per person, per night, sharing, and include every meal, two guided outings a day, local wine, beer, spirits and soft drinks.

From R7,450

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