L’Ami Family Restaurant – La Motte
Great – but ain’t got no vibe

It is one of the great pilgrimage sites of the winelands, and La Motte has spared no expense on any of it — the vineyard, the entrance, the views, the buildings, the décor, the wine and, yes, the food. High marks across the board. Very high. If there were a category for gravel driveways, they would take that too.

It is a foodie destination and I recommend it without hesitation, particularly to visitors. At current exchange rates you are not so much dining as quietly looting the place.

Here is how the visit goes. First, a faintly police-state welcome at the gate, where your details are taken with the thoroughness of a prison visit — you half expect to be told your inmate has lost privileges this week. Cleared, you are released onto a beautiful approach road with views that make the paperwork worth it. Park, then walk to the restaurant, past the deli and a shop priced for people who have already had the wine.

The staff are the secret weapon. Genuinely warm, and — more to the point — ruthlessly efficient. You are seated tout suite, asked about allergies, and then asked the only question that really matters: what would you like to drink? The menu changes with the seasons, which is another reason I keep coming back. Different dishes, different flavours, different ingredients, nearly all of it local and much of it from La Motte itself.

The room, L’Ami, is beautifully done and entirely devoid of wow. It is corporate. Unimaginative. Did I mention corporate? I put that down to the corporate owners. I preferred the old name, Pierneef, after the great South African artist — that celebrated something uniquely ours, rather than a light pun on the area’s Huguenot history. Somewhere in the Quai d’Orsay, a French official is quietly taking a victory lap.

The food was good. No argument there. The mussels were fresh, although a few had been cooked into small rubber gaskets. The chef was creative with a fresh herb and gremolata sauce genuinely worthy of fare la scarpetta. A relief, frankly, to be spared the same old white wine sauce.

One of my friends had the biltong Caesar. Clever, chef — we have all had quite enough chicken for one lifetime. Fresh, well presented, and mercifully free of incident.

Mains were beef short ribs, grilled yellowtail and venison. The short ribs were beautifully marinated, arrived with marinated artichokes and pak choy, and dissolved on contact. Rich enough that I could feel a siesta assembling itself somewhere behind my eyes.

The yellowtail came in a delightful white wine sauce which, having complained about white wine sauce two paragraphs ago, I am obliged to admit was excellent.

The venison loin arrived in a red wine berry jus. Order it medium, or medium rare. Anything beyond that and you are no longer eating it, you are resoling your office brogues with it.

 

But the thing we all loved most was not on the menu at all: the pommes frites. Thin, properly crisp, with mayo and tomato sauce. You have to ask for them, rather like a password at a speakeasy. Ask.

We skipped dessert, largely because the manager would otherwise have had to arrange gurneys to get us back to the car park.

The wine, though. That was the special part. We ordered the La Motte Chardonnay 2024: fresh and crisp, with the most gorgeous golden colour. Dry, medium bodied, citrus and mandarin on the nose with a whisper of French oak. I am picking up a case. Possibly two. Let us call it two.

All in, roughly R2,500 (about £115 or $155). Great value in your favour.

And yet, driving out, I was still turning it over. The setting, the service, the food — all excellent. But there is no wow. Je ne sais quoi, or given the earlier detour, je ne sais quai. It needs a soul, a bit of life, something to carry it up the last rung of Maslow’s hierarchy — the one where you stop admiring a restaurant and start loving it.