Durban curries, trout and time travel while chasing ghosts of old

David Rawdon was one of those blessed people born to the most extraordinary good fortune; a boy whose future kicked in the moment his American dentist father decided to build a beautiful hotel in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. 

The name “Rawdon” slowly became synonymous with a certain brand of old-school country hotel, until finally, when he died in 2013, his legacy had moved from Rawdons, the original near Nottingham Road, via Lanzerac in Stellenbosch to Matjiesfontein, with The Marine in Hermanus and Drostdy Hotel in Graaff-Reinet making appearances along the way.

In each case, while he was in tenure, the places retained a certain vintage aesthetic, though two — the Drostdy and Lanzerac — have become more corporate in feel since his passing.

I did it all back to front — Lanzerac was my first Rawdon hotel, Rawdons my last. In between, it was the Lord Milner Hotel at Matjiesfontein that captivated me from the moment I first set foot there until this day and has become a part of my family’s story. That was also where I got to know David Rawdon himself, to an extent. He saw me solely as “a reporter”, only coming to understand the depth in me later in his pleasantly champagne-swirled life. I didn’t, and don’t, mind; it’s the Fourth Estate’s task to observe life and “report” on it in any event, more than being a part of it.

When circumstances saw me returning to Lanzerac last week, having actually known David Rawdon turned me into a momentary local celebrity. Members of staff wanted selfies with me — “he actually knew David Rawdon!” — and must have thought the old boy they were checking in was 90 or something. I had to point out that I was only a kid when my dad first took us there in the mid Sixties, around 10 years old, and only came to know the man decades later.

More than anything, I remember his big, square, hearse-like Rolls-Royce parked in the oak-lined huge courtyard and how it would glide down the path and out through the stately portals.

His idea of a classy country hotel was unlike the luxury demanded today. Now, the entire point of the highest end of the hotel industry is to blind the guest with the jaw-dropping scale of what has been spent on everything. Then, the intention was to offer simple refinement, with nothing “flash” in sight. This is the sort of thing that was already going into a little boy’s head when his old man thought he was an idle wastrel with his hands in his pockets. If only he had paid more attention to the boy, things might have turned out differently. But that’s for the memoir.

Today’s Lanzerac is nothing less than impressive, but some of those I spoke to, when they heard I was staying there, said the place had lost something in the process. By way of happy contrast, I was told by an independent party (not a staffer) that during Covid, the entire Lanzerac staff were retained and paid throughout and “farmed out” to local businesses. A tipped hat is due for that.

I do think they have done a remarkable job of rebuilding and furbishing the central core of the hotel after a fire ravaged it in 2017. And voices hushed, frowns crept across faces, when names such as Markus and Jooste were mentioned. 

The general tenor is that this is in the uncomfortable past of a place that appears to have shucked off that snakeskin with some relief; like a dowager countess who mutters: “We don’t discuss that sort of thing in polite company, now where were we?”

Oh yes, Lanzerac. As a guest of Visit Stellenbosch. But only a few weeks earlier we’d been en route to the original Rawdons in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, where we spent a night in this insane year of local travel, none of it planned. 

We’d stopped for breakfast at John and Erica Platter’s home, the first time we’d seen them since pre-Covid. It felt like a lifetime had happened since our curried prawn lunch at Impulse by the Sea at Tinley Manor on the North Coast in 2019. Erica made us the most wonderful mashed avocado to spread on perfect toast; nothing says “Natal” more than avocado, so buttery, so sweetly beguiling. We talked and talked, there was so much to catch up on, but soon we were on the road after reluctantly dragging ourselves away.

We were en route home from Durban and Salt Rock when we pulled in at Rawdons, as we now do whenever we have the opportunity, to spend a night and have a few hours of old-fashioned delight in the Boar’s Head pub. 

This is a robust treasure of the Midlands, and the best example I know of of something retaining the charm it must have had when it was first opened in the 1950s. Must have had, because despite my parents having been avid local tourists travelling the country from end to end in June every year of my youth, we never stayed at Rawdons. But I don’t remember us visiting the Midlands at all in the Sixties; it wouldn’t have been the rigorously marketed “Midlands Meander” destination it has been since the Nineties, so maybe it was just countryside we passed en route to Durban.

Back in the Eighties, we made a few forays into the Midlands, and in the Nineties we visited Rawdons once or twice, but only for a pub lunch and a pint of something. It was only in late 2020, when Covid travel restrictions had been lifted, that we stayed for the first time, and when we returned about two years later I was astonished to find that the entire story that I wrote about that visit, once I realised that I had missed out on this superb slice of David Rawdon’s history, was printed on the back of their menu. In an unlikely flash, I was suddenly a tiny part of that original story too.

What a lovely pub this is, so deliciously old-school, so deeply authentic in the best way, nothing like the try-for old-school feel that today’s money buys. It’s drenched in true-blue character and a steadfast style that even the filthiest amount of money cannot buy.

The entire place is. I love the fact that seven decades have passed without some moneyed trust fund lout coming along, buying the place and ripping the historic guts out of it. Imagine if Protea Hotels got hold of it? The dowager countess would have a seizure and call for the sal volatile. I’d join her, throwing in a couple of stiff gins and a few Dubonnets for luck.

We had timed ourselves to arrive in time for a lunch of their famous lamb curry, which is exactly what you hope for in a “Durban curry”. We don’t like to leave KZN without at least one of these, and an excursion to a good spice shop. Later, after a long nap and a freshening up, we made our way to the Boar’s Head for preprandial wine, followed, in my case, by a whole salmon trout that was perfectly cooked.

There’s much more at the Boar’s Head, though I rarely stray from the picked pig pie or local trout — “posh ribs”, grilled sole, fried Camembert et al.

All of which makes one sleepy and needing bed before getting on the road towards Clarens after skirting the Sterkfontein Dam, which looks lovelier every time you pass.

An early night had us ready for the drive to Clarens, where Gosto, a large Portuguese joint, has become our regular choice. But first, breakfast in an alcove of the Rawdons dining room and one of the best omelettes I can remember in ages.

Packed with bacon, cheese and onion, it was proud and hefty. Fast-forward to last week, where — after a single oyster from the buffet spread — I had a similarly excellent omelette at Lanzerac. 

A classic three-egg French omelette, it was filled with “Marmite mushrooms”, pecorino and creamed spinach. Maybe restaurant omelettes are looking up — I’ve had so many disappointing ones in recent years that I had almost given up hope.

At Gosto in Clarens, I had a wondrous pile of calamari tubes and chouriço (we had the flaming chouriço, which was perfectly theatrical as it should be), followed by — well, I had said boldly earlier that I was “having a whole chicken peri peri”, which I did. And I can’t think of a better one in my life.

“That moment when the heat of the chicken (temperature) and of the peri peri dances on your tongue,” I wrote, because that’s what I want with peri-peri chicken. And with a perfect Durban curry. Who cares if it’s “burny”? That’s the point! As long as it’s equally full of delicious flavour, which is the other point. 

And sleep. And a long drive home. And here we are — now what? Oh, I know — I’ll plan a Durban curry, and peri-peri chicken. Then into dreamland, and visions of Matjiesfontein and Lanzerac and… sigh. DM