Gastronomy Tour - A Taste Of The Cape

An epicurean journey around the Cape on the southwestern tip of Africa is a kaleidoscopic experience of South African cuisines and cultures.

It’s an expedition that engages your senses and delights your eye, with a pot pourri of diverse legacies such as Cape Malay, Afrikaans, and Pan African, adapted ingredients, and indigenous creativity - traditional and contemporary.

You savour a variety of flavours - visiting a number of wine routes, tasting how the differences in soil, altitude and rainfall distinctively flavour the grapes, sampling globally acclaimed olive oils, tasting chocolate and wines together, cooling your palette on wine based sorbets, pairing dedicated combinations with surprising results, dining at Relais & Chateaux properties - and enjoy entrée to private domains.

 There are interactive cooking opportunities, visits to classic ‘old world' and contemporary 'new world' wine estates, some with grand Cape Dutch manors, others where cutting edge design meets function, meals at award winning restaurants, wine tastings galore, a charcuterie demonstration, even a flamboyant sabrage display.

You hear from respected food writers, a Cape Wine Master, chefs in their kitchens and gardens, passionate wine makers, acclaimed foodies - all chosen for their regional expertise, and pride of terroir.

 You visit landmark sites within the Cape Peninsula, scenically breathtaking locations such as the top of Table Mountain, the tip of Cape Point, villages constellated along the coastlines. You journey through enchanting landscapes - lush valleys with fertile vineyards planted on jagged mountain slopes, staying over in Franschhoek - the ‘gourmet capital’, Stellenbosch - in the heart of the winelands, and the seaside town of Hermanus - famous for its land-based whale spotting.

 SIGNATURE FEATURE

Between June and November see whales frolic in the sanctuary of Walker Bay, rated as one of the premier whale viewing spots in the world by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature. Watch them over sunset drinks from a cave in the rocks just above the sea, or while walking along the craggy cliffs that run along the shoreline or else from your hotel overlooking the bay.

October is spring time which means an abundance of flowers while January offers languid, long summer days with star studded nights.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

For the bon vivants, this gastronomic journey is about relishing the bounty from the Mediterranean climate in the Cape: cold pressed olive oils, sun ripened fruits, fish fresh from two oceans, flavourful game from the veld, succulent lamb from the Karoo.

For the curious, the focus of contemporary fusion food is no longer the merger of east and west, but of north and south.

For the thirsty, it’s about New World and Old World wine styles, and the harmony of opposites.

For the daring, there are culinary challenges, like tandoori crocodile, exotic spices, intriguing local specialities like fried caterpillars.

For the less brave, there are myriad indigenous delicacies such as biltong (dried salted meat), boerewors (hand made farm sausages) grilled over a braai (barbecue), bobotie (a spicier version of Shepard’s pie), and beguiling fynbos flavours like rooibos and buchu (Cape vegetation).

For the cautious, you can drink the water.

For those interested in the provenance of things - ''it was the search for food that shaped modern South Africa - spices drew the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to Java in the mid-1600s - and the need for a half way refreshment stop for its ships rounding the Cape that impelled the VOC to plant a farm at the tip of Africa.'' (Barbara Ludman: South African cuisine)

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All our operators are fully accredited by leading tourism authorities

*Prices are an indicator and dependent on current exchange rates