Review: La Residence, South Africa

It had been nearly a decade since I was last in the Winelands. Just consider what’s happened in that time. Pandemics. Wars. Artificial Intelligence. Pedro Pascal somehow appearing in every film and television show ever made. And, strangest of all, cold plunges everywhere. It felt time to return, see what’s changed and remind myself why people get so excited about this part of South Africa.

La Residence was an obvious place to start.  I’d stayed here once before, back in 2018, so it also offered a great opportunity — to see if, after enough time has passed that both the hotel and my own perspective might have shifted a little.  It was like my version of Eat, Pray, Love.  Just with zero personal growth.  No praying.  And definitely no love.

Getting there

About an hour and fifteen drive from Cape Town. Easy peasy.

They actually reached out on WhatsApp before I arrived to see if I wanted anything. More, was my answer. Just more.

Setting

The setting is stunning.  Simply stunning.

Franschhoek itself is definitely busier than I remember, but that’s probably because it is actually busier – it’s been nearly a decade since I was last here.  There’s more restaurants, more traffic, more life. But once you turn into the grounds that noise disappears.  Thirty acres gives you a lot of quiet time.

The main house sits beside a large pond that somehow makes it even more beautiful.   The reflections, the quiet, the feeling of space — it gives the property a sense of calm that can only be achieved with Valium or by owning a vineyard.  There is no in between.

Peacocks wander through the gardens.  Ponies graze near the entrance.  And the vineyards roll away into the distance in every direction.  And then the mountains sit behind it all, dramatically enhanced by the soft flickering of the sun that perpetually changes the mood.  Basically, identical to Detroit.

There are mosquitoes around though.  Let’s not pretend nature is always charming.

Facilities

The theatre begins the moment you arrive at the main house.

Water features are something the Royal Portfolio clearly enjoys, and here it works beautifully.  The large pond beside the main house anchors the whole property, with a small lake house and chairs and tables dotted around the water so you can sit and stare out across the vineyards pretending you have important things to think about. You can tour the vineyards.  Or you can take the more efficient option and drink the wine instead.

Inside, a 900-year-old piano player — who may well be dead and simply haunting the place — appears over lunch and proceeds to hog the grand piano. The space itself is enormous. It functions as the entrance hall, lounge, dining room, bar, and probably a secret gambling den.  Upstairs there’s a quieter area with books and board games, plus a balcony overlooking the pond. Downstairs there’s a wine cellar capable of hosting private dinners and the occasional séance.  Probably.

The pool faces straight out towards the expansive vineyard and mountain view. The pool itself is… fine. Perfectly functional, but visually quite dull and a missed opportunity given the setting. Nothing wrong with it from a maintenance perspective, it just lacks any sort of imagination. Fortunately the view in front of it does all the work. Deck chairs line the front edge and continue around into the shaded areas behind it.

And then of course there’s the boutique.  Because no luxury hotel is complete without guilting you into buying shit for the people you left at home, cos they were not deserving of coming here.

There’s also a separate terrace area down by the Vineyard Suites.  It’s an impressive, vast area.  This is damn useful because it means you don’t always have to trek back to the main house if you don’t feel like it.  It’s not miles away, but it’s also not a ten-second stroll either.  A few minutes.  Enough that if the sun is melting you, you may stay put.  Or in our case, god was taking a wizz on us.

There are outdoor dining tables, more seating inside, a bar area with fireplace, and plenty of sofas scattered around so you can collapse somewhere comfortable.  The pool is heated — and actually warm rather than the usual optimistic interpretation of the word.  Beside it, a wooden playground for kids.  And breakfast is served here in the mornings as a smaller, quieter alternative to the main house.  But I shall never accept a smaller buffet, so to the main house it was.

Spa & Gym

The gym is just a room tucked behind the offices, and looks like they accidentally discovered it after someone died at their desk and they cleared out the room. The equipment is technically all there, but it’s old and feels like you’re visiting grandpa at the retirement home.  And given the setting, it’s a shame it just stares into a wall instead of…anywhere.  The toilets would have been better.

The spa is just a single room upstairs.  

If they follow through with their plans to add the new spa, gym and tennis courts, there will be very little competition.  La Residence will comfortably become the best property in the Winelands.

Room

There are 11 rooms in the main house — a mix of Superior and Luxury Rooms — plus five Vineyard Suites scattered further out across the estate. The five Vineyard Suites are a mix of configurations: one one-bedroom, three two bedrooms and a three bedroom. And then there’s the absolutely epic, newly opened, Franschhoek House, which is the big, private, six-bedroom villa.

If you want proximity, stay in the main house. If you want more space, privacy, and your own pool, you go for a Vineyard Suite.  Basically, the Vineyard Suites are better for all but the lazy.  The rooms in the main house are still beautiful and you do have a balcony or terrace but it faces out so that people walking past can look in with more ease. There’s definitely more foot traffic through there.

I stayed in #4, a Two Bedroom Vineyard Suite. Privacy isn’t perfect here either — the hedge around the garden is a little lower than ideal — but that’s largely because it also has probably the best views. So yes, someone wandering past could theoretically see in, but if they’re down this part of the property, you’re going to have to assume they’re a pervert and likely wearing a Scream mask.

It sits right next door to the Terrace and there’s also a short hallway that means the suite can connect to #5, which is a larger three-bedroom suite.

The design is classic, over the top, Liz Biden.  Bold colours, art everywhere, chairs that look like thrones, yellow walls and deep blue carpets. It is not minimalist luxury. It’s not designed by someone in Copenhagen who believes colour is one of the deadly sins.  There’s space everywhere, with the theme clearly focused on enjoying being inside.  And then outside it’s even larger, even more impressive, even more inviting.  

Everything feels very well-maintained, comfortable, and luxurious.  You walk into a huge central space with a dining table, sofa area, minibar hidden inside a massive cabinet, and bedrooms branching off to each side.  If you didn’t get Liz Biden’s design, you would within fifteen milliseconds of being here.  

There’s a door that leads into the world’s smallest courtyard.  Just a fountain and a tiny space. Not sure what’s going on there.  Probably find some bodies buried there one day.  

The bedroom is spacious, although I’m not a huge fan of the doors — they use a sliding bolt system which sounds like you’re about to scrap a knife off a chalkboard, whenever you close your door. The bedroom also looks out onto a small internal courtyard.  Bizarrely,  it faces a wall, in a place with near unlimited space.  What are we thinking, guys?  Drugs?  Weapons?  The bodies of journalists that said anything bad?  But there’s a fountain in this space, which adds a gentle background sound, so we can ignore all the illicit activities.

Tech wise, there are plug adapters conveniently placed beside the bed, heated towel rails and underfloor heating in the bathroom.  There are a few confusing switches around the place as they’re clearly mid-way through some modernisation — things like upgrading the air conditioning units.  The new units work well, although they are loud.  And the TVs look like they’re about to get their pension and die eating a bowl of soup.  Also, the light from the living room spills into the bedroom quite easily, so if someone is awake watching TV it can disturb the person trying to sleep.  Trust me.  Thanks, Dad!

The bathroom, whilst having everything you might want, including a bath, double vanity and shower, just felt a bit on the small side compared to everything else.

Outside is really the reason to book this suite.  The garden is enormous.  Properly enormous.  A private pool (not heated), four loungers, two umbrellas, an outdoor shower, shaded sofa area, and a dining table where you could easily eat every meal if you wanted.  The hedges keep things mostly private and the vineyards stretch out in front of you.

The garden is so big it has two separate benches dotted around it. Presumably in case you need a rest while walking it.

There is some minor noise.  The suite sits near a road so you occasionally hear cars passing, and during our stay there was some work being done in a nearby field which carried across.  It’s not constant, but you do notice it from time to time.

What you notice more though is the sound of the small water feature beside the pool, the views across the vineyards, and the general sense that you could quite happily spend an entire week without leaving the garden.

Service

They really did a great job with the stay list. Really wonderful. A lovely selection of chocolates, raspberries and blueberries were waiting on arrival, plus my pillows and mosquito plugs already in place.

The real difference in service though came when I mentioned my Dad wasn’t feeling well. They quietly sourced medicine for him, including electrolytes, and had it waiting in the room. At Mount Nelson I got a shrug.

Yet the specific chocolate I absolutely loved at Malewane — the rose one — was nowhere to be found here. So obviously the entire experience is ruined. Zero stars.

I mentioned this to Craig, the GM, when he was giving us the room tour on arrival. Which was clearly a mistake. Because at the end of the stay he appeared with a large stash of chocolate after I’d explained how much I like it but also how I don’t want it because it makes me fat.

His solution was simply to give me more chocolate and let me deal with the consequences. What a prick.  I ate all of it and will forever love and hate him.

Communication is handled over WhatsApp, which works well and makes everything feel easy.  Quick message, quick response, no need to call reception like it’s 1997.

The overall service style is refreshingly normal.  You can tell the staff are encouraged not to be robotic wankers and to actually have personalities around guests.  Always appreciated.  Andrew in the restaurant was an absolute star.

One morning housekeeping had already been in and finished the room before we returned from our 7am breakfast, which takes some coordination.  We also booked a car to visit a nearby property and it was waiting right outside our suite exactly when it was meant to be.  Excellent service.

The lapses are small, but they’re there. They do bring the bill at meals, which I think could be done without when you’re staying in-house.  Come evening there were different staff and a few of the same questions from lunch reappeared, with preferences not always remembered.  Being asked our room number again at breakfast on the final day, for example. 

Housekeeping also didn’t come on the final morning until I asked. I cannot help it, I do consider that a standard of a luxury property and I’m always curious what they do. It is wasteful. But so is most luxury.

I mean, all of those last points are so minor, but no one reads this blog in order to hope it’s filled with generically washing over every mistake.

Food

I really enjoyed the first lunch. And the bill at the end even more. South Africa really is absurdly cheap for food. Lunch offers a solid spread of starters, salads, mains and desserts. Dinner is, strangely, more basic than the lunch menu, with only the soup changing daily.  I suspect they expect guests to go out into Franschhoek most evenings, which is fair enough given the suggested restaurant list runs to something like 24 pages.  But I’m lazy and would rather they simply offered a bit more variety in-house.

Breakfast is a small buffet alongside an à la carte menu.  I tried the avocado on toast just to see if they did anything interesting with it.  They did not.

I really did have some misses with the food. The steak itself was good, although noticeably tougher than I would expect for wagyu.  The second lunch was slow.  The waiter had to go check on my potato and leek soup, which you would imagine isn’t the most technically demanding dish in the kitchen.  It eventually arrived and was perfectly fine.  The chicken curry had apparently been remade as well, which might explain why it arrived quite late and also why it tasted fairly average — more bland than great.

The final night was the complete opposite.  I did the chef’s table, set at the end of the dining room near the main kitchen.  The chef prepares the entire, personalised meal in front of you, talks through the dishes, lets you ask questions, wander over to see what’s happening, and everyone rejoices in you rubbing your belly and saying “yum”.  That meal was absolutely superb.

So there’s certainly some inconsistency here.  It varies between “wouldn’t go back there” to “can’t wait to go back”.

Kids Friendly

Children over 10 years are welcome in the main hotel, while children of all ages are welcome in the five Vineyard Suites and Franschhoek House.

The Good

• Service
• (Some) food

The Bad

• Spa and gym

The Luxurious

• Enormous and private suites
• Extraordinary setting
• Excellent facilities
• Exclusivity

Conclusion

I did have a moment of reflection about my previous stay, because back in 2018 I really wasn’t that impressed.  I’ve been wondering whether that says more about them, or about me.  Probably both.  For starters, I’m definitely nowhere near as price conscious as I was back then.  But more importantly, this time I didn’t have someone constantly telling me it was the best place in the world — which is what we endured last time from someone we knew who got married here.  Eurgh, people being happy?!  I’ll see about that.

But undoubtedly, Royal Portfolio will have improved too.  And improved they have.  Last time I thought it was fine.  This time it felt special.

The setting already does an enormous amount of the heavy lifting.  Acres of vineyards.  The pond beside the house.  Mountains framing the valley.  Peacocks wandering around like unpaid interns.  It’s simply a beautiful place to exist for a few days.

Is everything perfect?  No.  The spa is very small.  The gym feels like an afterthought.  Dining occasionally feels like Jekyll and Hyde are running the kitchen on alternating shifts.

But somehow none of that really matters.

La Residence works.  It truly is a wonderful property.  It has character.  It has space.  It has warmth.  It has a wonderful team.  And it sits in one of the most beautiful corners of the Cape Winelands.  And with Franschhoek House, it’s now even better.

Enjoy.