A Taste of White Water
Six years ago, if you drove along the R326 between Stanford and Riviersonderend, you would have seen a sad farm that was once partly developed and then left to its own devices, a kind of Sleeping Beauty shrouded in layers of weeds, cobwebs and dust. Fortunately this all changed during the summer of 2015.
Two princes from Sea Point in a Porsche Boxster drove carefully down the farm’s dirt road, and were smitten. One was a London banker who had seen enough of the inside of airports, and the other an interior designer with high-end paint-finishing techniques at his fingertips, who yearned to replace the world of interiors with the world of food. In no time they abandoned Sea Point, swapped the Boxster for a Land Rover and some horses, and started the process of waking up a beauty called White Water.
On 19 December 2015, Robert Bell and Alex Johnstone welcomed guests to the newly appointed dining room for the first time on White Water Farm, below the Kleinrivier Mountains outside the Overberg village of Stanford. Robert was in charge of the kitchen while Alex slipped effortlessly into the front-of-house role. Since then White Water has become one of the favourite lunch and dinner destinations in the area. It’s also renowned as a stylish guest house.
In December two years ago the couple introduced long-table lunches, and these gatherings, where good food and good service rule, have a fiercely dedicated following.
Robert’s route to the kitchen, like that of many country chefs, has had a number of detours. When I ask him where his interest in the kitchen was first sparked he
