River Café: A new season, another reason, to explore Vergelegen Wine Estate
The father of reinvention is the most appropriate way to describe Wayne Coetzer – the not-so-new Managing Director of Vergelegen. Since starting his tenure at the wine estate, and more especially through the pandemic, Coetzer and his team have found a way of turning water into wine in the most intriguing way – through their food offerings.
Keep it small, but make it spectacular, is how the estate has revolutionised their food in the form of cleverly situated pop-up restaurants. The first successful creation was Nguni Café which overlooked a herd of Nguni and only offered (pork) gourmet hotdogs with chips. Classy and affordable are nearly impossible to pair together for a winelands meal – but the team has managed to pull it off with flair.
As the bookings rolled in for Nguni, it was time for something different, so the pop-up was moved next to a babbling river with lush green surroundings – and cleverly named River Café. You’d be forgiven for getting lost in the belief that you were in France, sipping on expensive delectable wine enjoying a decadent seafood spread.
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The dećor rains flowers, has massive pastel-coloured paper decals covering one section of the outside deck wall and if you don’t notice it, you’d be forgiven too – because the river and trees is all the picturesque setting you really need.
The menu is limited to eight options that range from fresh oysters, to seared tuna, West Coast mussels and the whole-roasted trout. There’s even a sumptuous beef rib-eye steak for the meat eaters. The menu is an ode to the body of water flowing next to the restaurant – a form of appreciation for the goodness that feeds and nourishes our bodies and souls from Mother Nature.
Every meal was a delight, prepared to perfection but the pièce de résistance was the whole-roasted trout. Singed quickly over hot coals, bite after bite the flavour intensified and what you were left with was a highly-satisfying main course with no room for anything else on the menu to impress you. But then there’s dessert and you shouldn’t ever miss that.
River Café is one of many pop-ups to come at Vergelegen, but some part of me hopes they never break it down. With so many people so desperate to travel, a place like this fills the gap and transports you somewhere exotic – even if it’s just for a few hours.