Yesterday, Mrs 6000 and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and – having survived the meal I cooked for us last night – we headed out to Franschhoek for some real food at Delaire on the Helshoogte Mountain Pass between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek this lunchtime.
And wow. What a treat.
The architecture, the views, the ambiance, the food, the wine, the service all rated as five star. Sure, it was expensive, but we could have paid the same for a meal in one of the Waterfront’s tourist traps and only got three stars for our money (at best). And we really don’t get the chance to do this sort of thing very often: memorably, our first anniversary was spent looking after a five day old baby. Our third was spent with the wife too pregnant to enjoy any sort of celebration. I remember having to drink all the wine that day and I did my best to relive that experience again today.
The journey home along the N2 was punctuated with 130kph photo opportunities, all of which seemed irresistible thanks to the 750ml of Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2007 I had imbibed.
Seriously though, if you’re looking for somewhere a bit special for lunch, I cannot recommend Delaire highly enough. We’ll certainly be returning for a longer visit (involving more food and wine tasting) next time we’re out Franschhoek way.
More photos from today are on Flickr.