Babel

Babel Babylonstoren Wine Estate, R45, Simondium, Winelands

Tel | 021 863 3852

Hours | Lunch Wed-Sun

Style | Casual

Features :

Alfresco

Groups

Trendy

Veg-friendly

Cuisine :

Website | www.babylonstoren.com/food/

Email | enquiries@babylonstoren.com

Owner/manager? Update details, add pics and more here.

Rossouw's Review

Please Register for free or Log in to see this review and add your own.

Scores

Avg Critics

? / 5

Avg Readers

? / 5

Register (FREE) or Log in to see these scores

Reader Reviews

Babel Simondium, Winelands

Babel, Babel, Babel oooh! | By Sam | Wednesday, 02 May 2012

Babel is hard to get into. Extremely. I've been trying to book since January, and either they really didn't fancy us or more likely, they’re just barn-stormingly successful. But the good news is that tourists flee after Easter, leaving the gates open for us locals to rush in.
I had high expectations of Babylonstoren. This stunning estate and hotel near Stellenbosch has picked up a pile of gongs since it opened last year, and friends who'd visited raved about how amazing, gorgeous, unique, outstanding and beautiful it was. Plus I love Maranda Englebrechts Manna café in Kloof Street and she was involved, so I knew it would be visually stunning.
We arrived at the gate in the first full-on, winter storm of the year. Torrential rain and sheets of lighting blasted down from the black sky as, coats over our heads, we dashed past fabulous giant pumpkins into Babel, the chapel-like glass restaurant.
Inside, all was calm, serene and pretty (if rather chilly) with white walls, an open kitchen and the menu scribbled across a wall sized whiteboard. Staff were immediately friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. The table menus featured ornately drawn vegetable and plants and would have looked jolly nice on my kitchen wall if I’d been brave enough to try and steal one, which I wasn’t.
But the truth is that despite the glorious setting, the food was a disappointment and here’s why.
To start, there’s a choice of three salads, cleverly labelled red, green and yellow. The theory is sound. The ingredients are the same colour, making for an aesthetically pleasing plate - the red salad contains beetroot, red cabbage, red lettuce, red basil or similar, with a trio of chemistry beakers with a different dressing in each. Pretty, but in practice, a plate of raw veg, on a rainy day, in a chilly restaurant isn’t ideal, and perhaps we just made the wrong choice.
So, the main course was going to blow us away instead – right?
Caramelised pork belly with verjuice sounded delicious and satisfied my main criteria for eating out, namely, order dishes you don’t/can’t cook at home. This wasn’t delicious. Chewy and dry, no crispy caramelised roof, rather a colourless, poached bit of belly. The gravy/sauce was thin and watery.
The other main was baked aubergine with tahini, pear and macadamia nuts. I know it’s digressing but Nobu’s aubergine with miso paste and sesame seeds is one of my favourite dishes. I love aubergines, but they do need help to shine. What arrived on my plate was a grey, seemingly, boiled aubergine with yoghurt and macadamia nuts sprinkled over the top. No warmth, no richness, no warm flesh tumbling inside the skin, in essence, no flavour.
The mains come with vegetable side dishes which would have been great except that one was whole beetroots (which we’d just eaten in our salad) and the second was speckled beans (ditto) so we didn’t much fancy eating them all over again. That said, the home cut chips were excellent.
As my partner said, it felt like cooking by numbers. Having settled on a menu and successful format, perhaps the dishes are being turned out daily with precision and delivery as the focus, rather than the tastes and flavours I was hoping to experience.
But things came right in the end when we decided to walk to the new Teahouse and try our luck on the puddings there instead. The gardens are magnificent. We marched sharply through avenues of trees, wild bird gardens, espaliered (I know I can’t spell it) quince trees heavy with fruit, and into the Victorian style glass tea house.
Here, as the only guests, we ordered tea and a tart. Oh happy day. Our warm and smiley waitress came across the garden, balancing fragile cups and saucers and an edible piece of paradise in a wooden tea box. An exquisite pear tart, full of warm, creamy, velvety puree and the shortest, crumbliest pastry. I don’t know who was hiding in the teahouse kitchen, churning out these delights, but if s/he can cook anything else, they need to take their magic touch to Babel.
On the way back, the rain decided to outdo itself and we were touched to be met by a member of staff with an umbrella, a nice thought even though we were only day guests. And at the farm shop we bought beautifully packaged foodie gifts and even a few of the farms aubergines.
It’s tricky to write a less than positive review when there’s been nothing but praise for Babel, but it’s the truth. Maybe it was a just a bad day, maybe the weather didn’t help, but despite the queues, the food wasn’t as good as it should have been. We’ll definitely go back to this beautiful place, especially to the tea house, and will continue to recommend it to overseas visitors, but we won’t be raising anyone’s expectations just yet.

Overall Rating: 3

Food:

Service:

Ambience:

Yes, I would return!

0 votes → Register for free or Log in to vote

Babel Simondium, Winelands

Garden of Eden | By Patrick | Wednesday, 21 December 2011

Babel, my handy online dictionary tells me, is a noun meaning 'a confused noise, typically that made by a number of voices : the babel of voices on the road. Or a scene of noisy confusion.'

Not quite speaking in tongues then but not far from it.
Babel, the restaurant, was noisy but it was the sound of a number of cheery voices thoroughly enjoying themselves. No sign of any confusion. Hang on, after several bottles of wine it might be difficult to find the car keys … Luckily there's always Good Fellas (or insert any other company who drives your tipsy self home here). Xmas public safety/responsible drinking tip done let's get on with it.
Location, location, location, is the estate agent mantra and they're spot on. Babel is on the wine farm Babylonstoren, on the R45 to Franschhoek, although it's a way outside the town itself. Which is fantastic because you're not only in the middle of vineyards you're also next to an extensive and immaculately designed herb and veggie garden of Biblical Garden of Eden proportions that supplies the restaurant. It has over 300 types of plants and is inspired by the Company's Garden, the famous one established by Jan van Riebeeck at the Cape in 1652. Incredible and even all the more impressive when you realize how much money, style and taste has gone into it. Which actually shouldn't be a surprise as Karen Roos is whispered to be the owner of Babel. Her of formerly the editor of Elle Decoration fame and wife to Koos Bekker. Him of the CEO of Naspers fame who owns Babylonstoren.

Style, taste and attention to detail is even more apparent in the restaurant. Old traditional wooden farm tables combined with designer modern chairs, elegant details like large cabbage leaves in crystal vases on said tables, freshly baked bread and poppy seed pods to shake over your salad. You know, it's the little things.

Service is excellent, the perfect combination of attentiveness, friendliness, alertness and knowledge pleasantly demonstrated in that No 1 waitering requirement usually so lacking in South Africa – making sure the patron never ever fills their own wine glass. On that subject the wine list is basic and sourced from surrounding farms but is all the better for it. It's also pretty reasonable which adds another thumbs up.

Then there's the food.

The menu is simple but unusual with an emphasis on fresh. Nothing wrong with that of course. Our 'red' salad (there was a green one and yellow one, too) at R55 was made out of things like beetroot, watermelon, radish, plums with a strawberry, pink peppercorn and rose dressing. Although the description doesn't do it justice at all. It was full of quiet, subtle flavours. Strangely intriguing. Mains are more standard and range between R125 and R140. More standard being things like lightly smoked Franschhoek trout, beef fillet and lamb cutlets. However the way they're cooked and the accompaniments are anything but standard. The trout, for example, came with a strawberry and lemon thyme creme fraiche and a strawberry and viognier drizzle; the beef with calamata olives and shiraz butter sauce. They were both (I tasted my wife's) bloody fantastic. We shared a dessert - gorgonzola ice cream sandwich - say no more.

It's easy to make a day of Babylonstoren. Linger over lunch in Babel, then wander the grounds, glass of wine in hand. A day that is idyllic, interesting, subtle, beautiful, memorable.

Overall Rating: 5

Food:

Service:

Ambience:

Yes, I would return!

3 votes → Register for free or Log in to vote

Babel Simondium, Winelands

Freshness prevails \| By Denis \| Sunday, 24 July 2011
Great wholesome, freshly prepared food from the gardens of the farm which are worthy of a visit even if you don't eat in the restaurant. Very limited wine list which focuses on the wines produced in the area. Service is friendly, but is not at all attentive and fortunately did not detract from an otherwise very pleasnt meal.

Overall Rating: 3.5

Food:

Service:

Ambience:

Yes, I would return!

0 votes → Register for free or Log in to vote

Book Now

Online booking by ComeDine

Home · Restaurants · Add Review · Journal · The Guide · About · Contact

Twitter

Facebook -->

Rossouw's Restaurants