THE STICKYFINGERED BLISS
Basil’s Fine Dining doesn’t offer frivolous foams or minuscule rations
of luscious mango eaten straight from the skin. Sweltering heat. Splashing into a lukewarm swimming pool and washing the golden pulp from my little hands. These are my earliest memories of subtropical Limpopo.
My family would leave Johannesburg before dawn and by mid-morning we would be on the R71 sweeping past roadside stalls bursting with fresh, brightly coloured fruit. I recall my dad pulling over to stock up on litchis and exchanging cash for trays of mangoes and paw-paws. These would require careful guarding during the Christmas holidays, during which we crisscrossed self-catering kitchens in the Kruger National Park. Vervet monkeys were enemy number one (children covered in mango juice make soft targets) but even at night, our goods weren’t safe because thick-tailed bushbabies would descend from the trees to get their marauding paws on our ripening stash.
Route 71 is a 200 km stretch of road between Polokwane and Phalaborwa, ending at the Phalaborwa Gate at South Africa’s favourite wilderness destination. Like my family, most visitors eager for sightings of the Big Five rush straight to Kruger – and miss out on so much along the way.
This time, I break with tradition. Leaving Johannesburg in the afternoon, I take a leisurely drive north on the N1. Before I even reach Polokwane, I am tempted off the tarmac at the family-run Ranch Resort. You may know it from news headlines announcing that it would accommodate the quarantined South Africans who were repatriated from
Wuhan in March 2020, but it should also be lauded for Basil’s Fine Dining Restaurant, a gem of an eatery, and the reason why I left home with an empty stomach. The manager of Basil’s, Paul Shearer, tells me that it was named after his grandfather and honours everything old-school, which is why I follow his recommendation and order a flambé Chateaubriand for dinner (after a year like 2020, we all need comfort like this). My waiter, Thabo Lefoka, pushes a vintage-style trolley in front of the table and I start to appreciate that Basil’s doesn’t offer frivolous foams or minuscule rations. Instead, their concept of fine dining means deferring to culinary classics, harking back to generous portions and championing unforgettable presentation.
Thabo deftly sears the beef tenderloin in a copper pan, then douses it in brandy with a flaming flourish, grinning as he shimmies the pan about. Dinner and a show! Served with mushroom truffle mash, a rich, glossy Chateaubriand sauce and a light Béarnaise, my theatrical meal certainly justifies my indulgent detour.
THE NEXT MORNING THE VILLAGE OF HAENERTSBURG,
on the western side of the Magoebaskloof mountains, wears a veil of mist as I take a slow drive into this realm of indigenous forests and pine plantations. I’m heading for The Eatery on Rissik, where I’ve arranged to have coffee with local smallscale farmer Teri Willson of Cicadas Local, who helped pioneer a new project supporting local farmers and businesses during lockdown.
“We started Mountain Foodies as a co-operative when the wedding industry crashed. Many of us locals grow produce and make home-made food products, and we wanted to find a way to share them,” she tells me. Producers do this by posting their food products and fresh organic produce on the co-operative’s Instagram account, and delivering to Polokwane