Since opening in 2004, the low-key winelands restaurant Terroir on Kleine Zalze (a family owned wine farm in Stellenbosch) has been honoured nine times with a Top 10 award in the annual Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Restaurant Awards. This achievement attests to chef Michael Broughton and his team’s consistency and attention to detail.

‘Every season, when it’s time to reinvent the menu, I always wonder what we can do better. In the process of creating new dishes with my team. When each dish starts coming together there’s that realisation that everything can be taken to the next level. Being stretched and challenged by the creative process is what excites me the most. Long-standing favourites on the menu constantly evolve without losing their essential character.

‘We bake two types of bread daily, using our sourdough starter called Sandy, the olives are marinated and smoked here, and we make everything from filled pastas to sweet-salty bacon by hand,’ says Broughton. In 2014, to mark the restaurant’s 10th year, he wrote Terroir – the Cookbook, in which he documented every element that makes up each highly disciplined recipe.

Terroir’s seasonally influenced menu is characterised by dishes such as: seared tuna Niçoise or roast beef fillet with smoked potato, peas and truffle jus. Some of the other new winter starters include a smoked tomato tart with goat’s cheese, peas and tomato jam, and braised lamb tortellini with carrots, dates and almonds. New main courses include fresh line fish with baby vegetables, potato gnocchi and Ciboulette sauce, confit pork belly with butternut, mushroom and barley, hand-rolled linguine with porcini, shimeji, asparagus

and parsley, and venison with braised cabbage, ginger, bacon, Poivrade sauce and spätzle. On the dessert board, apple mille feuille with miso caramel and elderflower is both delicate and punchy.

Until 30 September 2016, Terroir is also offering its Winter Plates special for R195. The price includes a generous main course, or ‘winter plate’, as well as the daily amuse bouche, Terroir’s trademark artisanal bread board, and a glass of Vineyard Selection Kleine Zalze wine of your choice.

Open Mondays to Saturdays for lunch and dinner, and on Sundays for lunch only. Terroir will be closed for their annual winter break from 27 June and re-opening on 21 July.

Tel: 021 880 8167 or email: restaurant@kleinezalze.co.za