Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff, Johannesburg, welcomes Babylonstoren to the table for the first of four exclusive seasonal dinners – a year-long partnership that will celebrate one of the Cape's most historic farms at every calendar moment.

Babylonstoren is one of the oldest Cape Dutch farms in the country, situated at the foot of the Simonsberg in the Franschhoek Valley. What has been grown there for centuries is something increasingly rare: a working farm with extraordinary botanical diversity, where the kitchen follows the garden, the garden follows the season, and nothing comes to the table before its time.

A pairing of four seasons

Each of the four special dinners will be determined entirely by what the farm and its winery are offering at that precise time of the season, with produce harvested directly from the celebrated Babylonstoren garden and wines selected by cellar master Klaas Stoffberg to reflect the best of his cellar at that time of year. The result is a series of evenings that, by their very nature, could not be repeated at any other time.

“Babylonstoren has always had a special place for me,” says Chef Rudi Liebenberg, Executive Chef at Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff.
“There is something about walking slowly through those gardens that brings you back to what cooking really is: the season, what is ready and the honesty of working with what the land gives you at that moment.
“Bringing that philosophy to our table at The Westcliff, along with their wines and products, is an opportunity I’ve been greatly anticipating.”

The first dinner begins in autumn: the season of olives, a common thread that runs silently and deliberately through each subsequent dish.

Guests come to enjoy canapés made from the farm's own harvest, including an oyster with Coratina extra virgin olive oil from Babylonstoren, along with a first pour of Sprankel, the farm's famous Cap Classique.

The menu moves through a trout mi cuit, a ricotta agnolotti with Babylonstoren dried tomato and olive crumbs, and a fire-roasted veal rump with veal cheek and truffle bone marrow pithivier, each dish perfectly paired with wines from the winery.

It's a menu that could only exist at this time of the season, and that's the point.

“It is an honor to bring Babylonstoren wines to a table in Johannesburg, especially at the Four Seasons,” says Klaas Stoffberg, Cellar Master at Babylonstoren.
“The wines are a direct expression of our Simonsberg terroir and the season in which they were made. We work with 14 grape varieties across the estate, from Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc to Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, each shaped by its specific site and conditions.
“For these dinners, the selection is guided by what is best displayed in the cellar at the time, offering guests a true sense of belonging through wines that remain deeply rooted in their origin.”

After the fall dinner, the Babylonstoren series will continue throughout the year with winter, spring and summer editions, each curated entirely around what the farm and its winery offer in that season.

The diary schedule

Dates on the agenda: June 25, 2026, September 23, 2026, December 3, 2026. Guests attending all four will experience something genuinely unique: Babylonstoren for an entire year, at one of Johannesburg's most prestigious addresses.

Tonight is the second in a wider series of intimate producer dinners from The Westcliff, each a partnership with an exceptionally prestigious South African wine and food producer. The Atlas Swift Winemakers' Evening in March opened the series. Babylonstoren, across four seasons, defines it. Places are strictly limited, so reserve your table now.