Hartford House

28 June 2019

HARTFORD HOUSE

Mooi River, KZN

Way back when, probably 6 or  7 years ago, the wife and I looked at a list of the top twenty restaurants in South Africa, published in a glossy “executive” magazine. Few of these notable eateries were outside the Western Cape and in KwaZulu Natal there was one, the restaurant at Hartford House, then under the care and control of Jackie Cameron. Ever since the wife’s had a yen to eat here, and of course to visit the Midlands, a part of South Africa neither of us were familiar with.

When the opportunity presented itself for a mini break, the wife booked a couple of nights at Hartford House and  a table for dinner on Saturday night. We drove up from Durban, well, strictly speaking, the area north of Durban, on Friday afternoon and when we arrived  and booked in, spontaneously decided to “join them” for dinner that night though it hadn’t been the plan. There are no other restaurants in Mooi River, the nearest town, we were aware of and had failed to find the local Spar on our way in, to stock up on some in-room dining goodies.

I would imagine the main building of Hartford House was built in the 19^th or very early 20^th  century, as it has that spacious, old colonial  farm house feel. It’s also incredibly elaborately decorated with all manner of ceramic busts, heads and figures, luxurious, old furniture and gilt framed artworks and the like. It’s a tad OTT and too much like someone’s almost random collection of artefacts gathered indiscriminately over a life time.  

The dining area is the covered, much more sedate, veranda overlooking the garden beyond.

We arrived at the venue well after the other diners. The idea, apparently, is that everyone meets around 18h30 for pre-dinner drinks, be seated between 19h30 and 20h00 and that service starts soon after, for about 2 hours, depending on whether one takes the 4 or 6 course menu. At least, that’s the stated intention. When we arrived at about 19h00, the other guests were seated at their respective tables, drinks service had already begun and was pretty much done by 21h00.

There was one empty table left for us, with white linen, cutlery and an array of elegant water and wine glasses, and one neatly framed menu. When we enquired from one of the servers why there was only one menu, the reply was that it was a set menu. Uh, yes, but can’t we have a menu card for each of us?  Oh! But of course!  We’ll go print another one for you quickly.

That was only the first example of what became a series of unfortunate events, so to speak, that were quite curious in the context of the restaurant of a five star hostelry.

Okay, then, once each of us could study the menu in our own time, what about the food? As mentioned, there’s the 4-course option for R495 and the 6-course option for R595. So, what’s the difference? The six courses include the four core courses (fish, pork, beef, dessert) of the attenuated menu, plus a starter of bits and bobs from the kitchen and a palate cleanser. Um, so it’s a no brainer then. Four courses it is.

Apparently, one can do a wine pairing with your courses. I say “apparently,” because nobody asked us whether we would be interested in this option. Not only that, but nobody asked us whether we wanted anything to drink, other than water,  until the wife asked for the wine list. We were first given an empty folder cover before the error was discovered and corrected.

According to the wife, who knows about wine, the wine list is quite impressive, at least on paper. We thought we’d start with a glass each of the Graham Beck Brut Rosé, a well-loved bubbly.  After a few minutes the server returned with the sad news that the wine cellar lacked stock of Graham Beck Brut Rosé, and then just stood there with a blank expression. The wife had to ask what the alternative was, knowing that it was bubbly from L’Ormarins,  before the server mentioned the L’Ormarins. Clearly no sommelier.

The L’Ormarins was good. It was also our sufficiency. Nobody ever returned to ask whether we wanted more bubbly or anything else alcoholic, even after a clear statement that we would start with the sparkling stuff. The wife usually goes on to wine and in my case it’s either beer or scotch depending on how sophisticated I’m feeling.  If the servers had somehow assumed that we were such cheap dates that the single glass of bubbly would be the end of our drinking, they didn’t even clear the supposedly superfluous, unused wine glasses that cluttered up the table to the end of the meal.

Hey, at least we had one bottle of water and SOME alcohol. 

The offering is plat du jour, upmarket style, with literally only four substantial courses, not even, say, eight, from which one chooses four. I guess it makes prepping and cooking so much easier but I found it odd for a supposedly upmarket restaurant. This kind of catering is what you’d expect at a wedding; the chef at Hartford House must be confident that none of the diners are going to take issue with any of the dishes.

At first impression, it was a nice touch that our chef made a personal appearance to announce and explain the dishes. This quirk of fine dining establishments, that someone has to take the trouble of explaining to you what you see on your plate, when the menu already usually tells you what the dish consists of, is probably meant to be part of the theatre of the dining experience but I find it superfluous and a bit silly, as the server doesn’t use a pointing stick to identify the elements but simply rambles off a narration learnt by heart. By the end of the tale, you’ve already forgotten the opening lines.

The chef also gave us some information on the provenance of the meat and other produce.  In this day and age, the picky diner really needs to know on which farm the cattle grazed, in what soil (and with what organic fertilizers) the vegetables sprouted and where the wheat was milled.

All very well, but at the end of the evening, and considering the standard of service, I concluded that the chef told the tale himself because he couldn’t trust the serving staff to do so. We’d been told that the menu changes daily, and this could have been a contributing factor why the sharing of information was not left up to the serving staff, but I cannot confirm this.

Once we’d said, “Four course, please,” the servers’ function and purpose were limited to simply serving the courses as they became available and clearing empty plates. That part of the service was efficient.

The bread course consisted of two slices of delicious, thick sourdough bread and a kind of seed tuille with home-made truffle butter. Once we’d eaten the bread, the empty serving board was removed but not the leftover butter, which remained on the table until the end.

The fish course was Wayferer(sic) Trout with papaya, persimmon and col’tempo chorizo which was a light, foamy dish to start with, no big flavours (where was the chorizo?) but subtle textures on the palate. The chef explained that he fried the persimmon in butter, which sounded intriguing because I love persimmon, especially the delicious large ones we’ve eaten in Spain (not so much the smaller, locally available Sharon fruit) but the tiny sliver of persimmon didn’t shine on the plate.

Next up was Dargle Valley pork with atchar squid, celeriac puree, slightly charred sweet corn and star fruit. The squid was a bit of a non-starter and the star fruit’s attempt at a fresh zing might have been better served by a tart bit of apple, but the pork was the real deal. There were two cuts, one was super yummy, soft, succulent slow cooked pork neck, and the other was a piece of belly, I think, that was moist in part and a tad dry in others, but the dish had the big flavours one expects, and was the star of the savoury courses.

The pork was followed by the beef (“I cook it  pink,” our chef said) from Angus cattle bred just north of Lesotho, with foraged mushrooms, pomegranate and spiced milk. If not pink enough for me, the beef was flavourful, with a deeply rich jus and lovely, subtle  sweetness from pomegranate. The wife thought the dish was too rich but that’s never been my issue. If it hadn’t followed the pork, it could have been the star of the evening.

Finally, the dessert, which was, thankfully, not some variation on chocolate but a delectable combination of honeycomb and rooibos ice cream, with gooseberry, tea sponge and mint. There was crunch, there was smooth creaminess, there was subtly sweet heaven on the palate. I think it’s the third time in a row where the dessert course of my meal has been a knockout, and I applaud the chef who can keep their hands off the cocoa and give us something as satisfying as this, simple as the concept may have seemed.

Our meal capping cappuccinos were truly excellent too.

It might have been a snap judgement but after this dinner we weren’t in the mood for a repetition of this kind of service. We’d probably seen the best our chef could do and there would really be no need to have a second dinner at Hartford House.

Don’t misunderstand me. The food was excellent, cooked with care and beautifully presented.  It’s just that we’ve learnt not to eat at the same establishment two nights in a row, especially when it serves upmarket food from a brief. limiting menu. One usually orders the only things you’d want to eat the first time around and there’s no point in repeating the same choices so soon or to settle for something you wouldn’t have ordered as first choice. At Hartford House, it’s worse because there’s no choice at all, even if the second menu might have been completely different. Who knows whether the chef’s whim would have accorded with our desires?

Hartford House, in the most wonderful lush setting, is a five star hotel and I would think that its restaurant serving staff should receive the training for and provide the five star service one expects. I’m not suggesting it should be Michelin star efficient but, what the hey, it shouldn’t be bad night at the Spur. To end on a positive note: at least they didn’t get our orders wrong.