De Volkskombuis — Restaurant in Stellenbosch Local Municipality

The staff is homophobic. Bad service. Average food. Way better establishments in Stellenbosch. Don’t waste your time here.

My fiancé and I recently celebrated our engagement in Stellenbosch and the guest relations manager at our hotel set up a dinner reservation for us at De Volkskombuis. He has a good relationship with the restaurant. When he called the restaurant to make the reservation, he told them about our celebration and specifically set up a bottle of wine and cake for the occasion, which would be served to us at dinner. However, none of this happened. Once we walked in and they realized we were a lesbian couple, we got the stink eye. It all went downhill from there. We could see the host even had the words, ‘anniversary dinner,’ next to our names and reservation in his sheet of paper. No one acknowledged our engagement during our two hour dinner, yet went out of their way to acknowledge the numerous birthday dinners around us. The waitress barely spoke to us except to get our order in. We received side eye and dirty looks from the staff throughout the course of our dinner. No one directly said anything rude to us, but intentionally made sure we did not receive even normal service treatment. The two tables next to us were each celebrating birthdays. They received amazing service and birthday cakes and so on from the house. We could barely ask a question about the menu before our waitress would walk away quickly. When we tried to get attention from other staff members, they’d pretend to look the other way. We regret not walking out. What a waste of a night out on a vacation. What a waste of money. Who knows if they spit in our food. When we walked out of the restaurant, there were two employees in the foyer area who immediately stop smiling and looked down to avoid us, while we walked out. Gross behavior. Take away the homophobia and this restaurant is still a massive waste of time and money compared to the 7 other restaurants we experienced in...

I asked the waitress what the most popular dish was for mains, and she replied with the 800g T bone steak (R350) I ordered it medium to rare along with a blue cheese sauce. When my food arrived, my steak was medium to well and no sauce and thought that it will still come. I then waited for my waitress to walk past to catch her eye and eventually after 10 minutes she came and when I asked her about the sauce, she replied that she will get it right away and I also asked her to warm my steak up as it was cold. She brought back the steak warm but more well done and the sauce was in the tiniest cup ever and very watery. I then left it and stared eating only to realize that the sauce doesn't even cover half of my steak. I called the manager with the name Lindon. I asked him if I could get a bit more sauce and that it was very watery, he then replied that that's the way the sauce comes and if I want more I have to pay. I then left it again and as I finished my dry piece of meat (20 min later) he brought another cup of sauce and said this is complimentary, however I said that I've finished my steak already and that it was too late and that he can return it. He then told me that I can pour it over my onion rings and I said to him that my sauce was for meat not onion rings. Rest of the day the Manager just looked at me everytime. Terrible service and not impressed with a place of...

De Volkskombuis is a unique Modern Farmstyle restaurant - set in al old house with a fire hearth and large wooden beams overhead , renovated to an elegant equivalent to any high end restaurant while still retaining the farmhouse feel. The result is a warm and comforting atmosphere with natural woods, classic farmhouse white walls. The decor, though uniquely farmstyle, is subtle an complements the dining experience. De Volkskombuis offers their modernised take on classical South African dishes without losing authenticity. Steak and Pizza's are also available for the picky eater, and vegetarian options are available although limited. The wine selection is truly remarkable, with a wide selection of local wines of the Stellenbosch and surrounding areas at low prices I have not seen matched in other restaurant. Service was friendly and prompt. I was here on a Friday night, though a bit quiet, I heard the peak times are on Sundays at lunchtime for family meals - quite fitting for the image of the restaurant. Would highly recommend visiting, and...