5 of the best farm-to-table retreats
As harvest season gets underway, commune with nature and enjoy bucolic pleasures at these charming working-farmhouse hotels around the world
BABYLONSTOREN Simondium, South Africa
This beautiful yet simple 18th-century manor house – one of the oldest farmsteads in the Cape Winelands – sits behind a sprawling private lawn against the backdrop of the Drakenstein Mountains. Featuring a distinctive and resplendent Cape-Dutch-style central gable and soaring roof, this gem of a private house is at the center of the fabled 500-acre Babylonstoren gardens and farm, some 40 minutes’ drive out of Cape Town. Guests can stay in one of the newer farm cottages or in the manor house itself, whose country house kitchen is a cornucopia of produce from the estate – an award-winning Chablis and Pinot Noir, virgin olive oil, cheeses and breads from the Babylonstoren’s wheat fields, baked in a wood-fired oven. When the gardens close to the public in mid-afternoon, you’ll have the acres of healing and edible flowerbeds to yourself. babylonstoren.com
SÃO LOURENÇO DO BARROCAL Evora, Portugal
Situated in the middle of Pampas-style plains, studded with olive groves and Neolithic dolmens in Portugal’s wild, golden Alentejo region, lies São Lourenço do Barrocal, a white-washed farmhouse that has been transformed into a collection of cottages and loft-style suites. Its sustainable approach produces a harvest of bright beetroots, carrots and watermelon and trees laden with lemons, apples and figs, much of which lands on Barrocal’s outdoor tables during its regular foodie gatherings. The restaurant and terrace is fabulously inviting, all tumbling pots of fresh herbs and bright nasturtiums. At breakfast, find endless varieties of granola, piles of the farm’s cheeses and homemade pumpkin jam; at dinner, tiny candles flicker as you savor a glass of the hotel’s red reserve.
BLACKBERRY FARM Walland, Tennessee
Amid the idyllic rural setting of the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, the family-run Blackberry Farm hotel offers innocent pleasures, such as hay raking and horse grooming, alongside more classic outdoor adventures of hiking, biking, riding and fly fishing. There’s an onsite creamery and bakery, while the dining experience in The Barn restaurant is as fresh as they come, serving organic fruit and vegetables straight from garden. After dinner, shoot the breeze on the boat dock with a tumbler of bourbon and an old Pendleton blanket on your knees. blackberryfarm.com
RESERVA DO IBITIPOCA Minas Gerais, Brazil
A landscape once ravaged by its gold-mining legacy, Ibitipoca has been transformed by Brazilian conservationist Renato Machado into a vast sustainable reserve. Base yourself at Engenho Farm, an 18th-century lodge, which is now arguably one of Brazil’s best hotels, lovingly owned and run by locals. The ancient terracotta roofs festooned with jasmine and creeping roses are low slung to provide shady spots on verandas, on which you can sit in a cast-iron tub for a bath with a view, or a perfectly positioned siesta hammock after one of Chef Marly’s family-style feijoada (Brazilian stew) feasts. Book via cazloyd.com
BELLE MONT FARM Basseterre, St Kitts
Belle Mont Farm, a former sugar plantation reimagined into a collection of wood-shingled farmhouses and cottages on the slopes of Mount Liamuiga, is a true utopian vision of eco living. It came to fruition after years of planning and imagining by hotelier Valmiki Kempadoo, who opened the resort to help empower the surrounding community with local farming practices, after the St Kitts sugarcane industry collapsed in 2005 (a first on the island, as 95% of the food is imported). One of the signature experiences is mango foraging, where you can pick from over 100 varieties not to mention that the farm is also home to the world’s only organic and ‘edible’ 18-hole golf course, Irie Fields, which has banned the use of pesticides and fertilizers. bellemontfarm.com
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