I was invited to Solms-Delta recently to sample the menu at Fyndraai Restaurant, learn about their wines and the farm’s history. It was a beautiful day with incredible food that left me longing for more.
Fyndraai’s chef, Shaun Schoeman, is cooking up even more heritage food inspired by fresh indigenous produce grown in the Dik Delta Culinary Garden. Schoeman’s menu has been renewed and refreshed with dishes like sticky glazed pork belly with Cape gooseberry and pickled spekboom, and a traditional Kaapse snoek parcel basted with lemon and wilde roosmaryn blatjang.
“It’s a more modern and grown-up Fyndraai in all respects, which I’m really loving,” he says.
Fyndraai Restaurant
The cuisine is also inextricably linked to the Dik Delta Culinary Garden, which occupies a two-hectare plot on the Solms-Delta estate. Created in 2010, the garden is planted with buchu, spekboom, veldkool and many of the other 400 or so plant species that nourished the San – the Cape’s first people – and cured their ailments. Renata Coetzee, the doyenne of South African cooking, has played a major role in the development of this garden, from the sourcing of plants to imparting her extensive knowledge about how best to prepare them in the kitchen, to Schoeman. Out of the Coetzee/Schoeman collaboration has come an exciting contemporary interpretation of traditional ingredients and dishes.
Fyndraai Restaurant is housed in what was once the old stables and workers’ accommodation on the farm, and is significant for its association with the current and past farm workers, some of whom were born and raised in the building.
A musical theme is carried from the neighbouring Music van de Caab centre into the restaurant.
Colour photographs of the various musical ensembles and events that form part of the Music van de Caab project, line the restaurant’s walls. Displayed alongside them are black and white photographs selected for their musical content from the Cape Archives, the Paarl Heemkring Collection and the Bleek & Lloyd Collection of the UCT Libraries Visual Archives. The indigenous photographs were taken by Dorothea Bleek, who went on many expeditions to study Bushman dialects and rock art in the Kalahari, Botswana, Angola and Tanzania.
There are two indoor dining areas: a room that seats 30, and a striking glass structure, which can seat up to 60. Additional outdoor seating for at least 60 is available on the stoep and the lawn. Each of the two rooms as well as the outside area will be available for private functions, as well as regular dining.
With so many more seasonal indigenous fruits and vegetables now available to us, we now have total flexibility and freedom to cook spontaneously from the garden. In addition, the new kitchen is much bigger and allows us to be more productive with what we harvest. – Shaun Schoeman.
This means Schoeman plans to launch more Dik Delta products in the years to come.
Taste The New Tasting Room
Even the most ardent wine tasters like something snacky with their wine, and the new Wine Tasting Room will offer charcuterie, cheese and even sweet platters to nibble from alongside the Solms-Delta wines.
“One can order a South African cured meat platter, which we serve with curried pickled waterblommetjies and traditional roosterkoek, or a local cheese platter with Dik Delta makataan and red wine (our own Solms-Delta Hiervandaan) onion marmalade,” says Schoeman. There’s even a sweet platter, with a koeksister, melktertjies and piesang malva pudding.
A special Wijn van de Caab Tasting Room feature is the Dik Delta food and wine pairing, which specifically showcases indigenous produce in six small courses matched with Solms-Delta wines. It is necessary to book this special pairing at least one day in advance.
P.S.: The Tasting Room will be the go-to spot for picnics at Solms-Delta. After collecting an abundant picnic basket, a guide will assist picnickers in selecting the perfect spot from a variety of sites, including a large grassy lawn alongside a forest, sandy river banks and shady spots overlooking the farm dam. Pre-booking of picnics is essential.
