Tokai Winter Special: Catharina's Steenberg

I’ve been working out in Tokai for over 3 years now and love the fact that I get to drive against the traffic in the morning. Every day I pass dozens of cars all waiting to go over Wynberg Hill to town, while I smugly cruise down the highway to work. But the one down side about working in Tokai is that NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE. EVER.

Ok, that’s a lie. Sometimes a truck overshoots the turn coming from Ou Kaapse Weg and plummets into the Steenberg Office Park walls.

But other than that there are no activations, no cool bars, no cool coffee shops or other hipster millennial options which, to be fare, do kinda make our city pretty interesting. So without Tokai being the young professional Mecca, there are one or two gems to be found in the surrounding Tokai wine estates. Enter Catharina’s at Steenberg.

Catharina’s Steenberg Winter Lunch Special

Catharina’s homey-with-a-touch-of-luxury restaurant is offering a delicious winter menu for those looking for easy business meetings, catch ups or just great food on a day off. I popped in last month to sample the delicious 3 course lunch menu, with an old friend, for a quick catch up on a perfect autumn day. There is a set menu with 3 options. At the time the starters were a choice of confit chicken Ceasar salad or mushroom risotto.

Seafood linguini with tomato and basil sauce, rocket and feta salad or a 200g sirloin steak, handcut chips served with roast butternut and creamed leeks:

And a choice of sorbet or rooibos creme brulee to for dessert.

And the Winners Are…

I love a mushroom risotto and this risotto was good, but it was a little bit loose. While the chicken Caezer was exceptional. Never thought I’d say this, but the salad wins this round!

The steak was cooked absolutely perfectly and I didn’t think I would enjoy the leek topping as much as I did! Leeks are used A LOT overseas, but they don’t feature in SA cooking THAT much (in my experience), other than leek and mushroom pie or something. So I really enjoyed this topping and the double cooked chips were delicious as well. (Can’t go wrong giving an Irishman a potato!)

The deserts – I have to give this one to the rooibos creme brulee for the sheer reason that this is one of the single best creme brulees I have EVER HAD! The texture was just BEYOND smooth! I don’t even know how they got it that smooth, it was absolutely delicious. The roof of sugar was thin and perfectly bruleed – some restaurants really do ruin it by having this MASSIVE slap of sugar, no thank you. (Two SA pet peeves – using 2 tablespoons of bitters in a rock shandy – it comes in a small bottle for a reason people! And too thick creme brulee crusts, no people, no.)

Book for Catharina’s Winter Special

While I had no initial relationship with Steenberg and didn’t love 1682 on my first visit, I’ve really come to love the estate. The views are just incredible, the food is amazing and it really is spectacular early morning.

If you have visitors from out of town, book at Catharina’s Restaurant for a delicious lunch time special.