Farmstalls along the N2 between Sir Lowry's Pass and the Houhoek Pass

Farmstalls on the N2

As the N2 sum­mits Sir Lowry's Pass and begins its meander through one of the most lovely val­leys known to man – the Elgin Valley is sump­tu­ous it is such a feast of beauty -  it passes no fewer than five farm­stalls dis­trib­uted fairly evenly on either side of the road (if you're smart, you can stop at one or two on the way to your des­tin­a­tion, and then another couple on your return).

We were headed to Vermont, the little vil­lage not far from Hermanus that has enjoyed a fair amount of atten­tion if the num­ber of hol­i­day homes is any­thing to go by. We took it upon ourselves to stop at four of the farm­stalls in an effort to do a com­par­ison and to see just what each of them offers — besides, it's great fun to fall out of the car, meander around the grounds, have a look at all the good­ies, make a selec­tion or two and then, between mouth­fuls, rate the nosh ...

Not even half an hour out of Cape Town, the Orchard Farmstall in Grabouw lies in the bend of the N2 in a pretty set­ting.  Facing out on the park­ing lot, its path­ways strewn with climb­ing roses, is the farm­stall, a cof­fee shop and a Wildekrans wine tast­ing venue, behind which lies the inev­it­able estate agency. Turning off the N2 towards the farm­stall, we couldn't help noti­cing that a par­tic­u­larly unat­tract­ive mall had gone up just across the road from them fairly recently — can't help won­der­ing if it has affected passing trade?

Orchard Farmstall

The cof­fee shop is not much to write home about. The food, based on a quick squizz through the menu, is typ­ical of road­side res­taur­ants — pies, pasta, salads that bor­der on bor­ing, ham­burgers, an array of soft drinks and cof­fees. But then you come to Orchard Farmstall to sample the cakes! And what an array. From apple tart to chocol­ate mousse cake, via an incred­ible look­ing lemon cheese­cake, just about every one's taste is catered for here — and they're all baked on-site. There was also a mouth­wa­ter­ing array of muffins and breads, although, on ask­ing, the breads are made with pre-mixes.

The shelves are lined with home-made jams and pre­serves — any­thing from orange, pas­sion fruit, pear and ginger to pine­apple, apricot, straw­berry etc. There are local and impor­ted teas on sale, any num­ber of local arts and crafts and then an array of the usual — chips, sweets, cooldrinks — that we've come to expect from farm­stalls. There is a lovely jungle gym for little ones to play on and the grassy sur­rounds of the farm­stall make a good spot to sit and pic­nic if you're so inclined.

Orchard Farm Stall pho­to­graphs — click to enlarge

A little fur­ther down the drag (the N2 that is) a large sign advert­ising Thandi wines, farm kit­chen and crafts. We were rather excited at the pro­spect, but it seems that we chose the wrong day as there wasn't much in evid­ence at the time. The res­taur­ant had a num­ber of cli­en­tele though, and I could see why — the menu looked par­tic­u­larly enti­cing, with homemade babotie and pie, and scrump­tious break­fasts, whilst at the other end of the room was a wine tast­ing bar. The roar­ing fire, on what was yet another one of the Cape's freak cold spells in November, was also most welcome.

Thandi Wines

What I didn't real­ise is that Thandi wines were the first Fairtrade wines in the world! (for more on  fairtrade see World Trade Fair Day) Thandi is a true empower­ment pro­ject with 90% own­er­ship in the hands of its work­ers. It's the first enter­prise in South Africa where the work­ers are equal part­ners with the state, the com­munity and private enter­prise in a profit-sharing farm­ing ven­ture! (awesome)

It goes a long way to explain the gor­geous little veget­able and herb garden into which we stumbled to one side of the res­taur­ant and children's play area. At Thandi you can pick your own veget­ables fresh from the fields, although the fields usu­ally ded­ic­ated to veget­ables were being pre­pared for new crops from what we could see. And accord­ing to Susan Kroukamp, who man­ages the res­taur­ant, craft centre and farm stall, much of their home-cooked food bene­fits from the veget­ables grown here, and they use their own veget­ables wherever pos­sible (what I didn't ascer­tain was whether or not they were organ­ic­ally grown).

The farm­stall and craft centre, unfor­tu­nately, were under­go­ing refur­bish­ment so weren't open. By all accounts it's usu­ally filled with home-cooked, home-baked, hand picked goods and pro­duce. We'll be back!

Thandi wines, farm kit­chen and crafts pho­to­graphs — click to enlarge

Our next stop was the Houw Hoek farm­stall. They're fam­ous for their pies and lay claim to the 'best pies in the land' (we thought we'd put them to the test, but more about that later). Judging by the num­ber of cars that make their way through here on any given day (we stopped off here on a Thursday and a Sunday and both days were equally busy) this is a pop­u­lar venue.

Houw Hoek farmstall

It's a little fur­ther along the N2 from Thandi Wines, on the right-hand side of the road, as opposed to the left, just before you reach the Houwhoek pass and into the Caledon Valley. Again, you don't come to the Houw Hoek Farmstall to savour its typ­ical road­food in the adja­cent cof­fee shop; if it were in Cape Town, you prob­ably wouldn't fre­quent it at all, but the farm­stall is prob­ably the best of the lot. Certainly it eas­ily jostles for first place with the Peregrine Farmstall, on the other side of the Houhoek Pass.

The deli side of things is well stocked — olive oils, vin­eg­ars, nuts, pre­serves, jams — much of it loc­ally sourced, or at least as much as they can. The ser­vice is excel­lent — you are not left to idle away your time dream­ily infront of the shelves, but rather in moments your needs are met and inform­a­tion is eas­ily forthcoming.

But back to their pies and saus­age rolls, for it is for these that the num­ber of pass­ers by stop — cer­tainly their pie rack is cleared out at least once a day by hungry bikers and roadtrip­pers (what is it about being inside a car that brings on the pangs of hunger?).

I'm not a pie fan, but I can attest to the excel­lence of these. My other half suc­cumbed to one where the pastry was melt in your mouth stuff.  I believe that there are cer­tain fans that can write an ode to their pies, so pop­u­lar are they! And that is without men­tion­ing the wine sec­tion of the stall, adja­cent to the shop that sup­plies a good range of wines from the region.

Houw Hoek Farm Stall pho­to­graphs — click to enlarge

Last, but by no means least, we made a stop at the Peregrine Farmstall, close to Grabouw. Apart from the fact that I felt as though I'd stepped onto the set of Heidi (the farm­stall resembles sim­ilar shops in the south­ern German region), this was a stall that was hum­ming with activity.

Peregrine Farmstall

They have a tra­di­tion of qual­ity homemade fresh farm pro­duce, and you can smell it the minute you walk in the door. Home made breads, piz­zas and pies come rolling past you down the aisles, bas­kets are over­flow­ing with fresh pro­duce, and if that doesn't tempt you, then the myriad deli-style foods will — any­thing from homemade pas­tas to deli­cious homemade sun­dried tomatoes.

Right in the front of the stall are an array of quiches, tarts, cakes, pecan nut pies, muffins and other delights, and all reas­on­ably priced. The fridges were filled with any­thing from keok­s­isters to mos­bol­letjies. They also boast a Saturday morn­ing mar­ket that looks well worth attend­ing. Peregrine Farmstall claims to emphas­ise all things nat­ural, organic, hand­made and whole­some — all of which I'm in favour!

Peregrine Farm Stall — click to enlarge

So, which farm­stall to choose? The choice is yours!

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