Cape Town’s Best-Kept Secret
I have a new obsession and it's right on my doorstep.
Offering the same unhurried, lodge-led tranquillity Sabi Sabi built its name on in the bush, The Claremont boutique hotel has somehow distilled all of that into a quiet corner of Upper Claremont.
Better still, you don't have to leave the burbs – just the small talk, the traffic and the faint exhaustion of being a known quantity to everyone you pass.
Elevated on the eastern slopes of the mountain, its entrance quietly announces a boutique affair created for indulgence. Inside, a staircase does most of the early talking and lures you in. A warmly inviting study lined with bookshelves, a fire-warmed lounge and a sun-drenched dining room designed for nothing more urgent than a cappuccino and comforting cake. Outside, the veranda opens to the kind of view of Table Mountain that interrupts whatever you were about to say. Below all this sits the most beautiful bar, and a wine cellar holding the best story in the building – which I'll tell you about another time. The rooms feel personal rather than staged – soft linens, textured headboards, considered detail in every corner, with the manor's high-beamed ceilings and original gables still holding their own beneath the modern comforts.
Sadly, I didn't have an excuse to stay the night – but dinner at Veld & Vine more than made up for it. The service was exceptional: the kind that disappears the moment it isn't needed and reappears the moment it is, without ever once making its presence the point. Warm, unhurried, without the formality that elevated establishments mistake for sophistication.
It's also the kind of place that quietly does the right thing without making a fuss about it – beef from a small, regenerative west coast farm, line-caught fish by a local fisherman who knows these waters better than most. We started with the calamari – crispy, golden, with garlic aioli and a hit of charred lemon – and it melted in my mouth.
I'd been told the steaks are the calling card, and I subscribe to the theory that you should always order what a restaurant is known for. The fillet arrived with their cowboy butter – a rich, garlicky sauce laced with mustard, parsley, lemon and a touch of chilli – and it was so exceptional I ate it in slow motion, determined to make it last. Everything that followed matched it. And for a meal of this calibre, in a setting like that, the bill was refreshingly reasonable.
Their cocktails are incredible, and with dinner we ordered their signature pour: a wine from Constantia Glen, made exclusively for Veld & Vine. Bold and beautifully structured, it's the kind of red that earns its place at a table like this. The estate's public range runs Two, Three, Five – but the Four exists only here, bottled solely for Veld & Vine. Which means you can't order it anywhere else in the city.
One visit was never going to be enough, and I'm already planning the next one – a cocktail that needs no occasion, a pot of something warm and a slice of something sweet, breakfast on the veranda while Table Mountain does its best work in the morning light.
If you live on this side of the mountain, you have no excuse not to go.
www.claremontboutiquehotel.com
