Die Stoep at Vriesenhof

Die Stoep at Vriesenhof is not simply a restaurant placed on a wine estate.

It occupies part of the home where winemaker Jan “Boland” Coetzee lived for more than forty years.

Coetzee bought Vriesenhof in 1980, choosing the south-facing slopes of Paradyskloof and the cooling influence of False Bay for the wines he wanted to make there.

Before that, he had worked as winemaker at Kanonkop, helping create the estate’s first bottled wine, and later became one of the early champions of Chardonnay in Stellenbosch.

One almost legendary Vriesenhof story comes from that Chardonnay chapter.

During the 1980s, Coetzee brought planting material from France despite the restrictions of the time. The story captures much of his reputation: an independent winemaker who was not particularly interested in waiting for the rules to catch up with his ideas.

He also became one of the co-founders of the Cape Winemakers Guild, while another part of his life was rugby at national level for South Africa.

But Die Stoep becomes most interesting when those achievements move into the background.

In 2024, Coetzee’s former home kitchen, braai area and dining room were converted into the restaurant.

The scale was deliberately kept domestic.

The Afrikaans word stoep means a veranda or porch, and the veranda with its large braai and wood-fired oven remains the heart of the restaurant. During colder months, the cooking moves indoors to a Spanish grill.

The menu revolves around seasonal produce, Neapolitan-style pizza, meat and fish cooked over open fire.

The style of eating follows the house too. Several dishes can be placed in the middle of the table and shared rather than turning lunch on a farm into a rigid fine-dining sequence.

Two other spaces connect the restaurant even more closely to the history of Vriesenhof.

The cellar holds mature bottles from the estate and other producers, with intimate Cellar Table dinners occasionally built around older vintages and magnums.

The JBC Room is dedicated to Jan Coetzee himself, using photographs and personal objects to bring together the two defining parts of his life: wine and rugby.

That is why Die Stoep feels less like a new restaurant added to an old vineyard.

It feels more like a winemaker’s home that simply carried on welcoming people after his life there changed.

In short: 🍷 Vriesenhof · 👤 Jan “Boland” Coetzee · 🔥 Braai and open fire · 🍕 Neapolitan-style pizza · 🏠 Former winemaker’s home · 🍾 Mature vintages · 🏉 JBC Room