Edelweiss is a strange mixture of Alpine architecture, boere fare and first-rate cabaret entertainment. Guy Willoughby discovered it in that other country — Pretoria
IF you come from somewhere else, our Executive Capital is an endless source of fascination: all that the locals take for granted has a curious air of mystery for the outsider. As a very wise friend of mine once put it, Pretoria is really another country, where they do things … differently. And difference, as you know, is everything.
Take the Edelweiss Function Centre, a sprawling farm of 150 hectares just north of the city, in a wooded area called the Boekenhout. You wind your way up a jacaranda-lined avenue for ages — and suddenly seem to land in Bavaria. As I say, its another country up here.
Here, amid dust and doringbome, you find yourself in the middle of some odd Germanised Africa. Its a hybrid of tawny bushveld terrain and wide-eaved Alpine architecture, filtered through the clinker- brick style that is Pretorias chief contribution to urban design.
Not that Barry and Marietjie van Rhyn, the genial proprietors, are at all German: it is just that a certain kind of entertainment seems to demand a Teutonic treatment in Pretoria. The Van Rhyns recently launched a new venture, the Edelweiss Theatre, to augment their holiday farm-cum-tea garden, and naturally their thoughts turned to the baroque as they built.
Inside a high-ceilinged auditorium, decorously laid with dining tables, youll find fulsome drapes, French windows giving on to Africa — and a startling trompe loeil that thrusts you smartly into the grounds of a stately schloss or chateau. One entire wall is gloriously devoted to this bit of boere-baroque cheek, and provides a fitting backdrop for evening entertainments.
On a recent weekend, entertainment on offer was twofold. First we were diverted during dinner by one of those South African guitarists specially bred to intone sad cover-songs in public eateries.
This particular chap had a weakness for Roger Whittaker and Neil Diamond, so we were regailed with trips to Old Durham Town and assured that He Aint Heavy, Hes My Brother. Hardly the sort of thing youd expect in a real-live schloss but unfortunately just the thing in this neighbourhood.
After dinner, on came a more formidable song-and- dance talent. In this setting, it was quite in order that the smouldering chanteuse be called Margit Meyer-Rodenbeck, and that she be as piercingly blonde as ein egte Berliner.
Actually, Meyer-Rodenbeck hails from Cape Town, that other sometime capital city, and her revue is called 1652: Revisie. She plays Maria de la Quellerie, who (as all good settlers know) was Jan van Riebeecks wife, and thus apparelled she takes us on a zany tour of recent history.
Its first-class, corruscating entertainment, a droll satiric romp through the odder reaches of the new South Africa. Listening to this slick, sharp battery of verbal fireworks, I couldnt help wondering why everyone is so worried about the future of Afrikaans. Part of the fun at the Edelweiss is observing your fellow diners. It struck me that these rather stolid-looking burghers were listening with rapt attention to the show — I defy Ms M-B to find more receptive hearers than in this bit of Bavarian bushveld.
Meyer-Rodenbeck is a new name to me, and if she is from the Cape, I suggest you look after her carefully down there. And our new rainbow flag has not looked better since being sewn into her skirt.
The amiable Van Rhyns intend having many more post- prandial amusements. To this end, they invite diners to fill in a form, indicating what sort of thing theyd like to see in future. Their list is pretty exhaustive — cabaret, country, light Afrikaans music, drama, poetry readings, international folk-dancing — so who knows what interesting ethnic turn may be on when you visit.
The food at the Edelweiss is more boere than baroque. Dinner is hearty, solid fare, an aid to plain living and high thinking, like much in this neck of the Boekenhout. The snoek pate and growwebrood are great, although the rather indifferent gammon (gerookte varkvleis) had been sliced too thin for its own good, and ours, and somehow theyd managed to leech out all the salt — a rare feat. However, sweetness elsewhere on the menu made up for this. Best was the pumpkin, followed by the poedings, where youll find enough sugar to rot your teeth deliciously.
While the Edelweiss Theatre is a worthy venue, and the schloss mural well worth a gawk, there are other pleasures out here too. The grounds sing and chatter by day with bushveld beasties, and you can take a leisurely tea with nature in full view. Now that spring is on the wing, and pollen is starting to prikkel noses, the Edelweiss Tea Garden is a fine place to breathe it all in. Edelweiss: (012) 808-1016