Is Babylonstoren Worth It?

What Is Babylonstoren?

Babylonstoren is one of the oldest Cape Dutch farms in South Africa, dating to the late 1600s. It sits at the foot of the Simonsberg mountains in the Franschhoek wine valley, about 60km east of Cape Town, roughly 45 minutes from the airport. What makes it unlike any other luxury hotel in the Winelands is that it is genuinely still a working farm. The 200-hectare estate produces its own wine, bread, dairy, olive oil, and an extraordinary range of fruit and vegetables, all of which feed directly into the restaurants and guest kitchens. Nothing is decorative. Everything is purposeful. The property was rescued and reimagined by Karen Roos, former editor of Elle Decoration South Africa, and her eye for quiet, confident design runs through every detail without ever drawing attention to itself. It also shares ownership with The Newt in Somerset, one of the UK's best-loved country hotels. If you know The Newt, you will immediately understand what kind of place this is.

Something has been quietly shifting in luxury travel over the last few years. The most interesting hotels in the world are no longer competing on thread counts or infinity pools. A new category has emerged, properties built around a deeper idea: that the most restorative thing a place can offer is not indulgence, but reconnection. To land, to seasons, to the rhythms of how things actually grow.

Babylonstoren is one of the earliest and most complete expressions of this philosophy anywhere in the world. Long before "regenerative travel" became a marketing term, this 17th-century Cape Dutch farm was already living it, farming biodynamically, feeding guests from a garden designed by a French architect, employing horticulturalists who could talk you through 300 plant varieties without referring to a single note. It did not set out to start a movement. It just built something coherent, and the world caught up.

What makes Babylonstoren genuinely different from other luxury farm hotels is how thoroughly the concept holds together. This is not a beautiful property that happens to have a garden and a restaurant. The garden is the point. Everything else, the food, the wine, the spa treatments, the morning walks, the ducks keeping the vines pest-free, flows from a single idea: that a farm, tended with real care and real knowledge, is one of the most nourishing places a person can spend a few days. When you are here, that is not a concept. It is just what Tuesday feels like.

The Gardens: The Heart of the Farm

I want to be careful not to oversell this, because "a beautiful hotel garden" sounds like something you admire briefly before heading to the pool. This is not that.

The 8-hectare kitchen garden was designed by French architect Patrice Taravella and contains over 300 varieties of edible plants: vegetables, fruit trees, medicinal herbs, edible flowers, cacti, beehives, and a tropical spice house. It is inspired by the Company's Garden in Cape Town, one of the oldest European-established gardens in southern Africa, and it has that same sense of being both beautiful and serious.

What makes it genuinely special is that it is interactive. You are not walking through a display, you are encouraged to pick, taste, and ask questions. The morning guided walks with the farm's horticulturalists are the highlight for me. These are not scripted tours. The staff who work in the gardens have often been there for years, and they talk about the plants the way people talk about things they actually care about.

Viatu tip: Get there early, ideally before 8am. Babylonstoren opens to day visitors during the day, and the paths can feel busy by mid-morning. In the early hours, you have the garden almost entirely to yourself, and you can watch the harvest team quietly working through it. That, for me, was one of the most peaceful moments of the whole trip.

One more thing worth mentioning: Babylonstoren uses ducks in the garden for pest control instead of pesticides. It sounds like a charming detail until you realise the whole farming philosophy is this coherent throughout, nothing here is for show.

Accommodation: Cottages, Suites & Villas

The accommodation is spread across the estate in buildings that once housed farm workers, now converted into cottages and suites. The Cape Dutch architecture, whitewashed walls, gabled rooflines, deep fireplaces, has been carefully preserved, but the interiors are warm and modern rather than rustic. Understated is the right word. Every detail is considered; nothing announces itself.

The main options:

• Garden Cottages: Open-plan, with large traditional fireplaces, well-stocked kitchens, and direct access to the gardens. Best for couples.

• Fynbos Cottages: Newer, slightly more private, with vineyard views and hot tubs. If I were choosing, I would probably pick one of these for the Simonsberg views alone.

• Farmhouse Suites: Rooms within the main farmstead buildings, more compact, but beautifully done and well-priced relative to the cottages. This is where I stayed and I absolutely loved it.

• Manor House & Fynbos Family House: Private villas sleeping up to 10, ideal for a family or group buyout.

Every cottage arrives stocked with seasonal fruit, olive oil, rooibos tea, and a bottle of estate wine. Fresh bread is delivered daily. Kitchens are fully equipped for self-catering, though given the quality of the food on the farm, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you used them for more than breakfast.

One practical note: Babylonstoren is open to day visitors, so the area around the farm shop and restaurants can get lively. The Garden and Fynbos cottages feel genuinely private and removed from that. If quiet matters to you, ask specifically for accommodation set away from the public areas when you book.

Activities at Babylonstoren

There was so much more on offer than I expected, though the real pleasure of Babylonstoren is that you never feel obliged to do any of it. The pace is entirely your own.

Included for hotel guests:

• Guided garden walks with horticulturalists

• Cellar tour with wine tasting

• Essential oil distillation tour and workshop

• Olive oil production tour and tasting

• Morning garden stretch and breathing session (weekday mornings, 8am)

• There are three swimming options: a heated indoor pool in the spa, a natural farm dam, and a secluded outdoor pool

• Pétanque on the lawn (more enjoyable than it has any right to be)

Additional activities:

• Cycling through vineyards and farm tracks

• Hiking into the surrounding mountains

• Canoeing on the farm dam

• Mountain drive (from two-night stays)

• Shuttle to Soetmelksvlei, a working farmyard experience set in the 1890s

For families: Babylonstoren works well for families with older children. Under-12s cannot access certain areas of the spa, and under-16s cannot join the wine cellar tours. For younger kids, the gardens, cycling, and outdoor space are genuinely brilliant.

Dining at Babylonstoren: Babel & Beyond

I had one of the best meals of my trip at Babel, and I have been recommending it to every client going to the Winelands since.

The menu changes daily based on what has been harvested from the garden that morning. The famous colour-coded salads, red, green, and yellow, are the thing to order and they are as good as described. The meat dishes are excellent too, generous and unpretentious. Pair everything with estate wine and you have the full picture.

What I appreciated most was that nothing was overcomplicated. This is not food trying to impress you with technique. It is exceptional produce, treated with real skill, served without ceremony. That is harder to pull off than it sounds.

The Greenhouse Café is the relaxed daytime option: open-air, tree-shaded, great for lunch after a morning in the garden. Order the rosé spritz and a loaded salad and you will not regret it.

The Old Bakery shifts between a morning café and an Italian-leaning evening restaurant. Breakfast at Babel offers a harvest table of fresh fruit, Greek yoghurt, mozzarella, cold cuts, and a changing daily cooked special. For me, it is one of the best hotel breakfasts in South Africa. Full stop.

Viatu tip: Babel is open for lunch Wednesday to Sunday, and dinner Friday and Saturday only. Book your dinner reservation before you arrive. Even as a hotel guest, it fills up.

The Spa & Wellness Experience

The Garden Spa is set within a bamboo forest on the estate and feels like it belongs there, not a hotel spa in the usual sense, but something more grounded and genuinely restorative.

Facilities include a hammam, hot spa, sauna, steam room, relaxation room, and a fitness room. Treatments draw on botanicals and fresh herbs sourced directly from the gardens, which gives them a specificity you do not get from a generic spa menu.

Personally, the complimentary garden stretch and breathing session at 8am is the thing I would make sure to attend, a quiet, unhurried start to the day that sets the tone well. Most guests walk past it. I would not.

The heated indoor pool is particularly good in the Cape autumn and winter months, when the mornings are cooler and outdoor swimming loses its appeal.

The Verdict: Is Babylonstoren Worth It?

Yes. Genuinely, yes.

But I want to be clear about what it is: Babylonstoren is not a conventional luxury hotel. There is no butler service, no formal activities programme, no hustle. It is a working farm that moves at its own pace, and the experience rewards guests who are willing to slow down and meet it there.

The food is outstanding. The gardens are extraordinary. The setting, surrounded by the Simonsberg mountains in the Franschhoek valley, is among the most beautiful in the country. And there is a thoughtfulness to the whole place: in how it is farmed, how it is designed, how the staff talk about it. It is something that you feel but cannot quite put your finger on until you leave and realise you are already thinking about going back.

Looking to combine the Cape Winelands with an unforgettable safari?