Hartford House
Where: Hlatikulu Road, Mooi River
Open: Daily lunch and dinner
Call: 033 263 1081
Exceptional food experiences go way beyond expectations. It might be anything from the food, the company, the waiter to the style or ambience that adds something special to an occasion. Often, it’s all the above. But when one is accustomed to such high expectations of a venue, hopes can be dashed easily.
And so it was with our little Sunday supper group on a recent visit to Hartford House outside Mooi River.
This boutique hotel, built in the Victorian farmstead of the last prime minister of Natal, has always had oodles of charm. It still does. The gardens are inviting, the staff friendly, the feeling of leaving the city behind is very much evident, but there was also the food ‒ always interesting, challenging, inspiring. It made the two-hour trip on bad roads worthwhile.
The main dining room hosted what was billed as a family-style lunch where all the main dishes were brought to the table and everyone helped themselves. Today’s menu included a start of a roast cauliflower soup, followed by trout with pea purée, venison with creamy polenta and chakalaka. This was served with roast baby potatoes with charred onion, roast butternut with blue cheese and pumpkin seeds, and charred cabbage with Caesar dressing and more pumpkin seeds. Dessert was a spiced sponge with dulce de leche.
At R395 a head this might offer good value and certainly could be a fun way of eating with a large party of friends. But none of us fancied venison with what is essentially pap and chakalaka.
Instead, we would try the small à la carte menu in the Tijnhuis, which is a beautiful stone building that spills out into the herb and vegetable garden. On a warm summer day, it’s lovely and temperate inside, but first we have to negotiate the stepping stones over the koi pond to get there. “It felt a bit like walking on water,” food writer Ingrid Shevlin said, although our waiter assured us no one had ever fallen in. But certainly not something to subject an elderly relative to (there is a way to get there going around the back of the house) and certainly something to bear in mind after a boozy lunch.
We peruse the menu and the first real sense of disappointment creeps in. This was beyond limited. Three starters, two of which were salads, three pastas, a lamb baguette and a Midlands platter of charcuterie, cheeses and pickles and preserves. The charcuterie board I could throw together in my own kitchen.
I remembered dishes from the past. The sous vide tongue on samp and beans, the lamb ravioli in rich stock, the ham and quince terrine with sweet mustard sauce, beef consommé with onion ice cream, boerenkaas croquettes rolled in truffle powder and the best gnocchi I have tasted. Previous lunch menus were always small and limited, but the difficulty was deciding what you were not going to eat. Here it was deciding what you might actually want to eat.
Even the once-famed wine list has been pared down to bare bones. We were offered a single pink that the waiter assured us was dry, but was more off dry. It just didn't sit well. I opted for water instead.
Ingrid asked if she could try the cauliflower soup off the other menu for a starter. This was thick and creamy but lacked any real cauliflower punch. My pea soup (R65) served in an absurdly deep pottery bowl was enjoyable, although the pick of the starters went to Jenny Clark of the Fat Frog bakery. This was baked Camembert (R86) with candied pecan nuts, croutons, celery and pickled apple. It was served on a bed of dressed leaves, although she would have preferred fewer leaves.
All the pastas were served on home-made pappardelle which we could see drying on a rack at the side of the galley kitchen that serves the Tijnhuis. Ingrid’s aglio olio (R85) with peas, capers, pesto and lemon zest was insufferably bland. She added salt and pepper to no avail, asked for some lemon wedges, and they didn’t help. Not even the capers could lift it. It desperately needed more garlic and a hint of chilli. My lamb ragu (R110) was very pleasant, the lamb having a slightly smoky flavour in a beautifully smooth tomato sauce.
Jenny enjoyed her lamb baguette (R115) with chimichurri, rocket, blistered tomatoes, mustard aioli and Parmesan. It was served with an Asian slaw. I would have preferred it if the baguette hadn’t been fried.
Dessert was a choice between lemon posset and chocolate brownies, both R60. Billed as topped with berry coulis and honeycomb, Ingrid and I went for the posset. Sadly, a beautifully smooth, rich and tart lemon custard was ruined by a heap of muesli and horrible dried banana dumped on top of it. I scraped it all off before I could enjoy the rest. The coffee was good.
Food: 3
Service: 4
Ambience: 4
The Bill: R750
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