Recently, we sat down with our Goathsed Chef SJ Nel, the inventor of our beloved pies, to find out more about his love for food:

Tell us a bit about your background?
I have Northern Cape roots and was fortunate to gain experience in British, Swedish and a few South African kitchens.

What is your favourite dish to eat?
Cooking all day does not create cravings for anything fancy. A simple freshly baked roll with sausage, coleslaw, mustard and a beer is what I love. I guess that’s why I particularly love making a good pie too!

What is your favourite dish to make?
I am guilty of crowd pleasing and therefore our most popular dish at The Goatshed Restaurant is Braised Fairview Lamb.

What are the most interesting things happening in food right now?
Real top notch ingredients, being prepared simply, served informally, with amazing attitudes, leaving small footprints.

What is your food philosophy?
Getting your hands dirty to bring together flavourful ingredients, from sustainable sources, taking care of the environment while helping people.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Dry aged T-bone steak with a generous piece of fat, matured cheeses and red wine.

Most bizarre thing in your fridge right now?
My wife, Lisa, is keeping me healthy with a variety of nutritious smoothies so I will have to say some of those ingredients – like coconut water, cocoa nibs and organic granadilla pulp.

What is your favourite food memory?
“Potjiekos” with my father, mastermind snack platters with my mother, traditional “padkos” roadtripping with my three sisters and mushroom risotto for my one and only Lisa.

Two flavours that shouldn’t go together but do?
Goats’ milk and caramel.

Advice you wish you were given as a young chef?
Listen to all your mentors, good and bad, you will definitely learn something.

The post Goatshed’s Favourites | Interview with Chef SJ Nel appeared first on Fairview.

There is a stranger (extraño in Spanish) in the Cape’s vineyards, named Tempranillo. Originally from Spain, Tempranillo now grows in local soils and produces grapes of exceptional quality. We’ve carefully integrated fellow Spaniards Grenache and Carignan – who add spice, fruit and freshness – to help temper this slightly rustic grape variety’s temperamental streak.

Since its release, this wine has been causing waves throughout our Tasting Room, becoming a firm best-seller thanks to its consistent taste, beautiful label and value-for-money. In fact, Extraño was one of our most awarded wines for 2017, receiving a 4.5 star Platter rating, a 2017 National Wine Challenge Top 100 award, and a 90 point score at the Winemag Signature Red Blend Report Awards 2017!

For our final Goatshed Dinner for 2018, we decided to pair a winning wine with a winning cuisine combination. Chef SJ Nel and the Goatshed team carefully curated a menu that will please all palates, while harking back to Catalan-inspired flavours. The event also marks the end of winter, and welcomes in a change of season for warmer weather and later sunsets. Come celebrate – and don’t forget your castanets!

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Tapas
Selection of breads, spicy dips & Salami
Paprika chicken Taco cups
Meatballs in Chorizo & tomato sauce
Mushroom Empanadas

Starter
Roasted Linefish & white bean soup

Main Course
Braised beef, potato cake & traditional Pisto

Dessert
Flan de Cafe

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

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Off the coast of the Greek isle of Santorini lies a sea-drowned caldera, a vast crater left behind by one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in history. Once a cradle of heat and magma, today that energy is still channeled into the Mediterranean dishes cooked in cauldron-style pots by locals. To celebrate the warmth and richness of this culture, we’ve crafted our Caldera wine to masterfully match with any meal… and the Goatshed Caldera Evening is just the fit for this experience!

Our sixth Goatshed dinner is coming up on the 24th August 2018: The Caldera Greek Evening!

Caldera was so named after Charles Back’s travels to Santorini in Greece. During his stay, he enjoyed the view of the mostly submerged caldera, located in the southern Aegean Sea, 120 kilometers north of Crete. Upon his return from Greece, he was inspired to create a Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre blend that would complement Mediterranean style food, such as the Greek cuisine he has experienced. And so Caldera was born – the oldest member of our Regional Revival Range, and one of our best!

This year, we’ve decided to introduce a strong relationship between the food and wine pairings, by complementing the Goatshed dinners to our most food-focused wine range, titled the Regional Revival Range.

The Regional Revival Range consists of the following 6 wines:
1. Fairview Brut MCC
2. Fairview Drie Papen Fontein
3. Fairview Nurok
4. Fairview Homtini
5. Fairview Extrano
6. Fairview Caldera

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Mezze
Greek style breads, olives and hummus
Homemade Dolmades
Spinach & feta tartlets
Haloumi & sundried tomato salsa

Starter
Prawn Saganaki & zucchini fritter

Main Course
Baked lamb meatballs with crushed potatoes, baby marrow, aubergine puree and rosemary jus

Dessert
Greek Style Fresh Cheese & Yoghurt tart, apricot compote

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets.

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Okay, yes. So this year we have flipped the theme of our annual Goatshed Dinners on their head, with the introduction of a paired Regional Revival Range wine to each themed event. However, the one evening we would never remove from our calendar is the ever-popular Fairview Shiraz and Free-Range Lamb Shank Evening on the 15th June 2018, which also happens to be the third Goatshed Dinner in our calendar this winter. Sold out every year, we trust there will be no exception this year! It also happens to align with Shiraz SA Week, so all the more reason to celebrate this bold red variety!

There is definitely a comfort factor that revolves around bringing together a bold red and a hearty meat in the middle of winter. Add to this our underfloor heating, roaring oven fire, and cosy Goatshed interior, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a true feast of flavours and trending hygge indulgence. We invite you to come and enjoy Chef SJ Nel’s reinvention of classic dishes using pork and duck ‘shank’, and incorporating smoked Shiraz vines with his tasty spiced pumpkin soup. Shiraz is also Fairview’s flagship grape variety, used across a wide range of blends and single bottlings. This one is definitely not to be missed, so book now to avoid disappointment!

Here is a breakdown of the menu you can expect to enjoy on the evening:

Amuse-Bouche
Pickled pork “shank” & mustard slaw

First Starter
Duck “shank” & bean cassoulet

Second Starter
Spiced pumpkin soup, lightly smoked with Shiraz vines

Main Course
Shiraz braised Lamb Shank Pie, mashed potato & baby marrow

Dessert
Goatshed’s milk tart & Shiraz poached pear

***

R325 per person
Wine Pairings included

Click below to purchase your tickets:

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