Vanilla Café – slow life in Greyton continues with breakfast, lunches and high teas

Vanilla Café

Putting a bouncy castle in your back garden is an almost full proof guar­an­tee of cli­entèle. Or at least, those of a cer­tain age group. If you're in the pres­ence of a four-year old, there is vir­tu­ally no stronger mag­net. 'Mom, it's a jumpy castle!' emit­ted together with a gasp of excite­ment and much hand tug­ging, and before long, we're sit­ting in the sun dappled — dis­turbed inter­mit­tently by rain – garden amidst much tree climb­ing and blown up castle jump­ing – the things that please small people!

But it wasn't all that bad. I mean, for us adults. On the con­trary, Vanilla Café was some­thing of a find, con­sid­er­ing it was right next door to our accom­mod­a­tion and one of the few child-friendly res­taur­ants in Greyton ...

The Vanilla Café sits oppos­ite the Oak and Vigne Café, an espresso and sand­wich bar that serves light lunches, runs a deli and wine cel­lar and also houses Von Geusau's chocol­ates. One assumes that the two man­age to co-exist har­mo­ni­ously for it must feel, when times are tough, that one or the other is ser­i­ously encroach­ing on the other's turf. Yet as I watch, pat­rons seem to wander between the two, and when the sun is out (and it hasn't been much of the week­end) then the pretty little garden of the Vanilla Café is the place where loc­als and vis­it­ors mingle.

The café tag is a bit of a euphem­ism, as the menu is rather elab­or­ate for a coun­try out­let that's big on break­fast. For one, the break­fast line-up includes the Cape Town Kugel — a com­bin­a­tion of smoked sal­mon, avo­cado, poached eggs and hol­landaise sauce all served up on an English muffin, and the lunch menu even boasts a veget­arian burger!

Locals are exud­ing at the little picket fence that divides the garden and the rest of the res­taur­ant about the World Cup, which they reckon, along­side most of South Africa, is just the best thing that could have happened to us. They're all sip­ping on mugs of cof­fee in vari­ous guises – Vanilla Café does a fair num­ber of fil­ter, espresso, cap­puccino and latte s.

At the table next to us is a local biker still in his togs, his two huge boer­boels that sur­pris­ingly are but deli­cious giants by com­par­ison with his little mini­ature ter­rier, who must have con­fused its height and weight with that of its sib­lings, because it more than lives up to its name by ter­ror­ising my son whenever he moves (admit­tedly my son does not do any­thing in small meas­ure and tends to jump every­where), which is rather alarm­ing to us all.

Dog safely tied up, whilst boer­boels feed on scrambled egg, we resume our search of the menu, not sure, given that it's now 11.30 in the morn­ing, whether to do break­fast or lunch? No prob­lem, one of us will tempt fate and get break­fast, whilst the other will def­in­itely have to try the Falafel bur­ger. And whilst we wait, we order enough hot drinks to ensure our numb fin­gers have some­thing to wrap around in order to defrost.

Now we begin to look around. Vanilla Café is excep­tion­ally pretty. Outside the tables and chairs don't need much more work, given the views, and with the sun now out, the swings and jungle gym are being put to use. The café is housed in what was ori­gin­ally an old barn, believed to have been used by the res­id­ent black­smith in the days of horse and wagon in the vil­lage. Part of the wall near us remains dis­tressed, and we guess that this is why. That or it's purely dec­or­at­ive. But we like to feel this link with the past.

We revert to the menu again where Ravioli com­petes with a Greyt-Onion Burger and Thai fish­cakes. Nummm. Breakfast too is none too shabby, and I only opted for the French Toast, which arrives drip­ping in honey and a huge dol­lop of cream cheese, over the Muesli Cup – lay­ers of nuts, honey, Greek yoghurt and muesli with sea­sonal fruit – because it's chilly.

And whilst I ini­tially think two slices of toast a little on the stingy side, it must be said that it was more than pleas­ing to digest. Our only dis­ap­point­ment was the Falafel bur­ger, which appeared to be little more than a fist­ful of chick­peas given rather a pound­ing and dolloped on a bur­ger. It could have had a little more sub­stance, even if the sauce and chips were good.

That said, you don't mind if the food is not quite there, when your usu­ally fraught meal­time is pleas­ant because junior has other things to occupy him. And between the jungle gyms, dogs, other chil­dren (with whom he is fas­cin­ated) and the odd taste of chips and tomato sauce, he is in four-year old heaven.

It begins to drizzle. Now it's pour­ing. Waitresses rush to lift the fine cush­ions and seat­ing arranged on the other side of the fence, where a por­tion is devoted to a kind-of loun­ging effect, and we adjust ourselves to fit under the umbrella. Despite our patron's urging us in, we're determ­ined to sit it out and await the sun­shine we have been denied the last couple of days. And just as well, as it resumes within a few minutes.

I do go to scout out the indoor part of Vanilla Café. The present own­ers have been there but three months, and this is the first week­end that they're feel­ing the effects of the weather; usu­ally they're packed.

Inside there is a crack­ling fire­place and black boards announ­cing the vari­ous menu options vie with an assort­ment of gifts and nick nacks, local art and décor items. Let it not be said that you are short of choice when in Greyton. There is plenty on which you can spend your hard-earned Rand, and the items add in many ways to the res­taur­ant, which has an eclectic atmo­sphere as a result.

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