Sagewood Café is officially launching on Thursday, 14 May, at the Blackwood’s Home of Gardening complex on Chatterton Road, Pietermaritzburg.

The café will be open from 8am to 5pm, seven days a week, serving a wide variety of delicious sweet and savoury meals, pastries and more, using only farm-fresh, local, seasonal and organic ingredients. And what would a café be without coffee? Sagewood Café’s brand new state-of-the-art coffee machine has arrived and their skilled baristas will be on hand to bring you silky smooth cappuccinos and speciality coffees that will keep you coming back for more.

Over the past month, Sagewood Café owners, Chef Gregg Oosthuizen, and Con and Sue Malherbe, have been busy transforming the old Olive Tree restaurant into a beautiful daytime setting, which exudes warmth and will make customers feel right at home. Gregg Oosthuizen, who is a food artisan at heart, has created a menu that will delight lovers of fine food and those with an appetite for culinary adventure.

Says Chef Gregg, “At Sagewood Café, we believe in real food where everything we serve is made using sustainable and local produce, and organic wherever possible. On the Sagewood menu, expect a variety of breakfast, tea-time, light food and lunch options as well as daily-changing pastries and breads at the Bakers Table, all created with a delicious Sagewood twist and catering to a range of different tastes.”

For breakfast, choose from “traditional”, filled-with-goodness or decadent dishes including the to-die-for sweet waffle topped with sautéed fruits, vanilla honey roasted pecans, farm fresh cream and cinnamon crumble. Or, try an artisan creation (or two) from the daily-changing Bakers Table showcasing sweet and savoury muffins, scones, pastries, biscuits, breads, cakes and much more.

Light meals include open sandwiches on artisan, rye, health or gluten-free crusty bread, with fillings like Basil Chicken, Smoked Bacon, Peppered Steak and Brinjal Stack; and salad options such as slow-roasted pulled pork and apple on a bed of fresh greens with smashed seed and rosemary brittle, crispy sage and lime dressing.

The café will be serving pizza and pasta straight from the wood-fired oven, with sour-dough pizza bases made from  stone-ground flour from the Midlands or Banting-friendly cauliflower cheese and gluten-free base options, all prepared with Sagewood Café’s secret “red sauce”.

Signature dishes include culinary delights such as the Farmers Market Plate (roasted butternut, organic feta, olives, sundried tomatoes, grilled sweet peppers, brinjal, rosemary-scented sweet potato and pesto smeared flat bread); wood-fired baked baby chicken stuffed with sage, rosemary and citrus; and Greenfield's Rump  served with pepper and mushroom sauce; a zucchini, red onion and green chilli fritter; and shoestring fries.

The Sagewood Café menu is set to change monthly to take advantage of seasonal and local produce availability.

On weekends (Saturday and Sunday), the Artisan Table will be launching a lunch time Midland’s Roast Buffet.

Says Chef Gregg, “I can’t wait to launch my Artisan Table, which will be available on Saturdays and Sundays only. We will be serving pure artisan food made from scratch and on a small scale so it will always be first-come, first-served. We invite customers to be adventurous and come and explore taste with their eyes and mouth.”

Chef Gregg has many more exciting plans up his sleeve, so watch this space and ‘like’ and follow our social media pages to get the latest news in our culinary delights every week.

Sagewood Café launch details:

Date: Thursday, 14 May 2015

Opening Times: 08h00 – 17h00 Monday to Sunday.

Address: Blackwood’s Home of Gardening, 97 Chatterton Road, Pietermaritzburg

No bookings. Just arrive and enjoy!

Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sagewoodcafe 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sagewoodpmb 

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sagewoodcafe