Living well at Crags Country Lodge

 14 June 2024

Dinner and breakfast at

CRAGS COUNTRY LODGE

Off the N2, The Crags, Plettenberg Bay

 

Crags Country Lodge, in business for just over a year, had an amazing special offer of accommodation including dinner and breakfast and we drove up specially to celebrate our 16^th wedding anniversary with an overnight stay.

 

Well, we did stop off at Hartenbos first to leave the Yorkies in the care of the in-laws.

 

The lodge consists of a campus of buildings in the Cape Vernacular style. The reception, dining space, bar and kitchen are in the main building and the rooms sprawl out from there, connected but separate, with a massive green lawn with views over the  verdant valley  below and hills beyond. Quite spectacular.

 

The dining room is a large open space with huge stack doors on two sides, and a wrap-around stoep, for the fabulous valley views. The tables and chairs are simple, elegant, unadorned wood and the general ambience is modern, understated and pleasing.

 

THE DINNER

 

The menus were personalised as “Neels’ Menu” and “Von-Mari’s menu.” A very lovely touch to makes us feel quite special.

 

The chef is the co-owner (her husband met and greeted us on arrival but we never laid eyes on her) and she can cook.

 

Obviously, our choice was a three course dinner that would’ve been R395,00 a head if it wasn’t for the very advantageous special offer we fully embraced.

 

The bread course consisted of two warm rustic rolls with herb butter and hummus and confit garlic. An absolute delight and great way to start the meal.

Liquor-wise, we kicked off with a glass of bubbly each, for those mutual toasts to love, happiness  and the gratitude of having been together for almost 20 years and married for 16 very happy years and being able to have these getaways to celebrate important occasions.

 

After that, the wife switched to red wine and I had a whiskey cocktail. Sadly, the first choice wine wasn’t available and neither was the brand of scotch named in the description of the cocktail.  We didn’t allow these crushing but meaningless blows to spoil the mood.

 

Wanting to start light, my opener was the Gluhwein poached pear salad and the wife, with some trepidation, went for the Ras al Hanout spiced Springbok tartare; raw venison isn’t her thing.

The salad was light and refreshing and the tartare was sublime, absolutely converting the wife to the joys of raw Springbok.

 

My main course was the pan fried yellowtail. I tend to opt for the fish course but Kingklip is so often the line fish of the day and I’ve had more than my fair share of it over the years that I avoid it now.  Now, yellowtail, is  different kettle of Pisces, so it was a no brainer.

 

The fish was perfectly cooked and flavoursome and the vegetables were fresh, with a delicate combination of savoury and natural sweetness. Seafood supreme. 

The wife, ever the happy carnivore, elected to tuck into the slow roasted Crags lamb and was lyrical in her praise of the dish. Not only was the meat tender and succulent but the jus was deeply rich and, to purloin a phrase, finger licking good (if the wife were the type to lick her fingers after a meal.) An absolute triumph.

 

Both of us chose the cardamon and mango crème caramel dessert which was, as they say, quite nice without shaking our tail feathers. It was light, redolent of mango and with subtle cardamon undertones; a lovely, low key way to end off a superb dinner. 

 

THE BREAKFAST

 

The following morning we ate breakfast on the stoep outside the dining area, with superb views over a lush, green valley.

 

We drank orange juice and coffee and were served an amuse bouche of poached apple on overnight oats

before I tucked into the fry up breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, potato, roasted tomato, a mushroom and some crisp kale

, while the wife had a croissant with poached egg. 

 

Splendid breakfast.

 

I don’t want to sound  like an advertorial, but Crags Country Lodge was well worth the visit, for the large, beautifully appointed room, the general  ambience, the scenic setting, the friendly and efficient service and the superb food. We would recommend it a hundred-times over and the current winter special is a steal.