Gardener's Cottage — an escape beneath the trees in Newlands

Gardener's Cottage

If you're think­ing of lunch­ing at this pop­u­lar haunt, set under the trees in Newlands, then book ahead. Time spent here is always down time, whether in sum­mer or winter. There are gor­geous, old, and huge shade trees under which lie tables, chairs and umbrel­las to beat the sum­mer heat, and in winter, the interior of the tea garden and break­fast and lunch time venue is divided up into cozy nooks.

I bustled in a little late for my lunch date with Patty, hav­ing just man­aged to squeeze my car into a spot out­side where park­ing is some­thing of a com­mod­ity, at the Montebello Design Centre. She's always so jacked that she had already phoned ahead to book a table, both in and out­side, just to ensure that we had the best pos­sible spot! What are friends for?

Autumn was start­ing to turn and the wind was a little nippy, so we opted for a snug alcove inside – the room just behind the little kit­chen bar is a per­fect spot, just man­aging to accom­mod­ate  five tables and chairs (I'm sure that this is a new addi­tion, but I can­not remem­ber?) And the con­stant steam, chat­ting and banging that accom­pan­ies cof­fee mak­ing provides an ideal screen for intim­ate con­ver­sa­tion – there isn't much chance of being over­heard with the noise and other table chat­ter going on.

Lunch with Patty is always a feast of con­ver­sa­tion. There is no bet­ter way to describe the man­ner in which we caper from topic to topic, exclaim­ing over things as they come to us, and break­ing into the middle of top­ics with other thoughts as they strike us. Fortunately, we man­age to stay on the same page, even if simple daily routines like order­ing food, becomes some­thing of a mam­moth task!

Photographs: Gardener's Cottage Restaurant and Coffee Shop

But the menu at Gardener's Cottage is not dif­fi­cult to nav­ig­ate, and the food is good old-fashioned, home-style cook­ing, with excel­lent choices for tea (have a look at the cakes as you enter the res­taur­ant and you'll see what I mean). In par­tic­u­lar their muffins are very good (look out for the feta and herb rendition).

For lunch we could choose from the Gardener's pie, lamb curry, cori­ander chicken, but­ter­nut pan­zerotti, roast veget­able pasta, home-made beef mince bur­ger, a selec­tion of salads, and what's known as the Gardener's cot­tage sushi stack – inter­est­ing lay­ers of sushi rice, freshly diced sea­sonal veges, avo, smoked sal­mon, mayo and all the rest of those neces­sar­ies like was­abi mayo and bal­samic reduc­tion (do you not love the lan­guage of food), and of course the stand­ard baked potato or toated sand­wich option (although these come on ciabatta or whole­wheat – hardly bog stand­ard issue fare!).

Whilst vacil­lat­ing over what to eat, peppered by con­ver­sa­tion, we finally settled on a roast pep­pers, basil pesto, car­a­mel­ized onions, camem­bert, feta and olives on toasted ciabatta (deli­cious!) for me, whilst Patty suc­cumbed to the lamb curry.

The Gardener's Cottage is the ori­ginal gatekeeper's lodge at the Montebello Design Centre, just off Newlands Avenue. It lies set in amongst a com­plex of old farm build­ings steeped in his­tory, ancient pine trees, and a host of arts and crafts work­shops. Don't think of simply com­ing to tea.

The design com­plex needs a walk through in its own right. And if the over twenty arts and craft stu­dios and work­shops weren't enough to choose from, there is a also a gor­geous green­house in an accom­pa­ny­ing indi­gen­ous garden centre, the set­ting of which makes you want to unearth a pas­sion for garden­ing, if you haven't already (I'm not the green fin­gers in the fam­ily, unfor­tu­nately; even my indoor pot plants tend to shun me after only a season).

Photographs: Montebello Design Centre, Newlands

The Montebello Design Centre is some­thing of a devel­op­ment pro­ject, its aim to pro­mote good local design, using craft for job cre­ation. It even has a forge tucked around the back of the centre, a pot­tery stu­dio, work­shops for car­penters, paper makers, paint­ers, jew­ellers, weavers, musical instru­ment makers, book pub­lish­ers, a res­id­ent spe­cial interest map maker (he's a col­league of mine, hence my hav­ing lunched here at least once) and then shops like Mielie that spe­cial­ises in tex­tile products hand­made from recycled mater­i­als by a group of ladies from Khayelitsha (they hold an organic vege mar­ket on Fridays selling veges from their own garden pro­ject), and kwaLapa, the organic deli and whole­food shop where you can also have tea and lunch (well worth sampling) and pick up organic food items and organic food-related products.

People based here make a liv­ing from their craft. It's a won­der­ful place to come and stroll around, and a must to sup­port — if you're look­ing for a spe­cial gift, then this is the place to come.

Finally, after a cup of cof­fee, our con­ver­sa­tion still far from over, we dashed out — my need to pick up my son from school a press­ing prior engagement.

So incred­ible to think that we have all of this on our door­step. Cape Town is filled with little spots just like this, so many that we (almost) become immune. The secret is to pause a little and real­ise how lucky we are!

Contact:
The Gardeners Cottage Restaurant & Coffee Shop
31 Newlands Avenue, Newlands, Cape Town
Telephone: +27 (0)21 689‑3158 (Bookings advised!)

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