There are meals you stop for because you are hungry, and then there are meals that become part of the reason you went somewhere in the first place. At The Farm Shed at Remhoogte Mountain Lodge, the idea is refreshingly uncomplicated: good food, a table worth lingering at and enough mountain and farm around you to make rushing off afterwards seem rather unnecessary.
Set in Skeerpoort in the Hartbeespoort area, The Farm Shed is the food heart of Remhoogte. It is a place for breakfast before heading out for the day, pizza after time on the trails, a long lunch beneath the trees or simply settling in and letting farm time take over. Behind the kitchen is Chef Max, whose approach to food fits the place rather well: relaxed rather than fussy, generous rather than precious, and made to be enjoyed.
If you are looking for farm-style dining near Hartbeespoort, here is what makes The Farm Shed a little different:
- Meet Chef Max and the personality behind The Farm Shed kitchen
- Discover a menu that moves from breakfast and light bites to pasta, pizza, hearty mains and dessert
- Find out why the farm and mountain setting are as much a part of the experience as the food
- Enjoy outdoor dining on The Terrace beneath the trees
- Turn lunch into part of a day out in the Skeerpoort Valley
- Combine a meal with hiking, a day visit or an overnight stay at Remhoogte
Meet Chef Max
Chef profiles can become terribly serious affairs. Lists of qualifications, culinary philosophies, influences and carefully rehearsed thoughts on gastronomy.
The Farm Shed’s own introduction to Chef Max takes a rather different approach. It jokes about his spelling, his age in dog years and the fact that he is still learning new tricks before getting to the important qualification: he cooks a mean plate of food.
That tells you quite a lot about the personality of the place.
This isn’t a restaurant trying to make lunch intimidating. Chef Max’s kitchen sits at the centre of a relaxed mountain-farm experience where people come to eat well, talk, stay awhile and enjoy where they are.
And the menu reflects that.
What kind of food can you expect at The Farm Shed?
The current Remhoogte menu offering stretches comfortably across the day, from breakfasts and lighter dishes to pasta, Neapolitan-style pizzas, hearty mains and desserts. The Farm Shed’s own food philosophy has also described the menu as Italian inspired, with an emphasis on slow cooking and local ingredients.
It’s an approach that makes sense here.
This isn’t somewhere that needs to compete with its surroundings. The pleasure is in sitting down to something good while the farm carries on around you.
It also means The Farm Shed can be different things at different times of day. Breakfast can be the beginning of a day exploring the Magaliesberg. Lunch can become the main event. Pizza can be the reward after a hike. And sometimes you don’t need an occasion at all.
Being hungry is reason enough.
Farm-style dining is about more than putting “farm” on the menu
There is a reason people leave Johannesburg and Pretoria in search of farm restaurants.
Often, the food is only part of it.
You are also looking for space. Trees. A table outdoors. Somewhere the children don’t have to behave as though they’re in a city dining room. A view that isn’t another building. And, perhaps most importantly, permission to spend longer over lunch than you originally intended.
That’s where The Farm Shed’s location at Remhoogte becomes part of the dining experience.
Remhoogte sits beneath the Magaliesberg foothills in the Skeerpoort Valley, combining accommodation, trails, outdoor experiences and farm hospitality on the same property.
You aren’t arriving at an isolated restaurant and then leaving again. You are arriving somewhere where lunch can fit naturally into a much bigger day out.
Take lunch outside on The Terrace
When the weather plays along, there is very little argument for staying indoors.
The Terrace is the outdoor dining area of The Farm Shed, with shaded seating, open-air tables and views across the farm and towards the surrounding landscape.
That distinction matters because The Terrace isn’t another restaurant competing with The Farm Shed. It’s simply another way to experience it.
Find some shade, order something from the kitchen and settle in.
The Magaliesberg isn’t going anywhere.
Come hungry after a hike
There is something particularly satisfying about sitting down to lunch when you’ve actually earned it.
Remhoogte’s professionally graded White, Blue and Orange hiking trails give visitors three very different ways to explore the property, from the easier White Trail to the considerably more demanding Orange route.
That creates a natural combination for day visitors: hike first, Farm Shed afterwards.
The person finishing the White Trail may arrive back pleasantly ready for lunch. Someone coming off Orange may have rather stronger feelings on the subject.
Either way, having the restaurant on the property means there is no need to climb back into the car and start searching for somewhere to eat.
For visitors researching farm-style dining near Hartbeespoort, that is worth considering. The Farm Shed can be the destination, but it doesn’t have to be the whole day.
Or don’t hike at all
This deserves saying.
You absolutely do not have to climb a mountain before Chef Max will feed you.
Come for breakfast. Meet friends for lunch. Sit outside. Have pizza. Order dessert. Look at the mountain from the comfort of your chair.
There is something rather lovely about visiting a mountain lodge and choosing not to be remotely athletic.
Remhoogte also offers accommodation across Mountain Lodge and Crafters Lodge, which means guests staying on the property have The Farm Shed as part of the wider lodge experience rather than needing to travel elsewhere for every meal.
A different kind of Hartbeespoort food experience
Hartbeespoort has no shortage of places to eat.
What makes The Farm Shed interesting isn’t that it is trying to be another conventional Harties restaurant. It’s the combination of food and place.
You come out into the Skeerpoort Valley. You leave some of the busyness behind. You eat on a working farm beneath the Magaliesberg. You can hike, stay overnight, spend time outdoors or do none of those things and simply enjoy lunch.
And somewhere in the middle of all that is Chef Max, making sure there is something worth sitting down for.
Because sometimes the best part of escaping to the country isn’t what you do when you get there.
It’s what arrives at the table.