Babylonstoren

Babylonstoren occupies one of the oldest Cape Dutch farms in South Africa, established in 1692 at the foot of the Simonsberg mountain between Franschhoek and Paarl. The estate's defining feature is its garden, redesigned from 2007 by French garden architect Patrice Taravella, whose earlier work on the kitchen garden at Notre-Dame d'Orsan caught owner Karen Roos's attention. Spread across roughly eight acres, the garden holds more than 300 edible or medicinal plant varieties arranged in 15 clusters — vegetables, stone and pome fruit, citrus, berries, nuts, bees, ducks and chickens among them — and every restaurant and shop on the property draws directly from what's in season there.

Alongside its wine cellar and olive grove, Babylonstoren has built a tea programme around the Cape's own fynbos plants: rooibos and honeybush, sourced organically from a Cederberg supplier and, more recently, grown on the farm's own Simonsberg slopes. Both are naturally caffeine-free, with rooibos's fruity red infusion and honeybush's honeyed, floral cup sold loose or bagged in reusable tins from the farm shop. The Babel restaurant and the Greenhouse eatery cook from the same beds, so a visit can move from garden rows to a cellar tasting to a pot of estate-grown honeybush without leaving the property.