Somewhere between work deadlines, relationships, family commitments and the endless admin of being an adult, it can become surprisingly easy to lose touch with the life we are actually living.
It sounds dramatic, I know, but in an increasingly digital world, we have become very good at making life more efficient. We stream movies from the couch, have groceries delivered to the door and maintain entire friendships through sporadically sent voice notes.
These conveniences bring ease, yes, but they also make it easier to live on autopilot and to treat all encounters, even simple human connection, as something to squeeze into the diary.
So, when an invitation to Butcher Boys and Boschendal’s Bella Night rolled around, I was in desperate need of a girl’s night out. Better yet, the invitation had arrived only a few months after my closest friend from university had moved back to Johannesburg from Mauritius.
We arrived at Butcher Boys Kyalami to the soundtrack of Raye’s Click Clack Symphony, if only in my head. Aptly launching during Women’s Month, this was the first in a new dinner series between Boschendal wines and the Butcher Boys steakhouse. Titled Under The Tuscan Sun, we were promised an evening of Italian-inspired fine dining, complete with five courses, paired wines and an intriguing “luxury gift”.
Ostensibly, we were there for the food and the Boschendal wine, but the prospect of sitting across from one another for an entire evening, rather than exchanging the usual “We need to catch up!” voice notes, felt like an indulgence of its own.
That sense of intimacy extended to the upper floor of Butcher Boys Kyalami, which had been transformed into a sensory haven of moody lighting and artfully arranged stacks of lemon and orange. These would later prove more than just decoration, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
The circulating antipasti had already caught our attention: fresh oysters, meaty prosciutto-wrapped prawns, truffle arancini and a mouth-watering olive tapenade bruschetta, all paired with a glass of crisp Boschendal Brut. Well, not just one glass. The attentive waiters ensured that no guest’s well ran dry.
So, it was with a freshly topped-up glass that we toasted our friendship. A popular social theory suggests that if a friendship lasts longer than seven years, it will likely continue, so we clinked to 700 more years (just to make sure we cover our bases).
We have remained friends throughout some of the most crucial years of our young lives, watching each other grow through terrible decisions, graduations, heartbreak, moving out and in my case, learning how to drive at a staggeringly slow pace. Luckily, she is blessed with patience, and a long, slow dinner seemed a good way to celebrate us surviving both life and my driving.
The evening officially began with a guided tasting led by DGB wine connoisseur Petra Snyman, complete with an assortment of Riedel glassware. We worked our way through the Boschendal Brut, Elgin Chardonnay, Elgin Pinot Noir and lastly, the Nicolas, comparing how each changed between glasses. Look, smell, sip, transfer, smell and sip again. If, like me, the intricacies of tasting notes and particular flavours tend to elude you, rest assured that a good portion of our group was simply happy to have a good glass of wine.
That is until the blindfolds came out.
You’d be surprised by how different something can taste when one sense is taken away and the others are forced to pay attention. Armed with strips of black ribbon, we took turns tasting each wine alone before introducing salt, lemon or coffee beans and taking another sip. Watching one another’s expressions after each addition proved both extremely entertaining and surprisingly informative as we debated whether the lemon had dampened the chardonnay’s sweetness or if Nicolas’ dark chocolate notes had become more apparent. The wine hadn’t changed. My attention had.
Sitting there blindfolded, concentrating absurdly hard on a mouthful of wine, I found myself thinking about a podcast I’d listened to recently featuring Dr Ian Bogost, a professor at Washington University in St Louis and author of the new book The Small Stuff: The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life.
The idea for the book grew partly from an article Bogost wrote about the disappearance of manual-transmission cars. As more of everyday life becomes automated, optimised and frictionless, he argues, we risk losing some of the small physical encounters that connect us to the world around us. His answer isn’t to make life deliberately difficult but to pay more attention to the sensory pleasures already embedded in it: the things we touch, taste, smell, hear and physically experience.
As I sipped on Boschendal’s Elgin Pinot Noir, marvelling at flavours I might otherwise have missed, his argument crystallised. I drink wine regularly, but how often do I slow down enough to fully taste it?
By that point, we had dipped into several glasses of wine and were eagerly awaiting the next sensory development when dinner arrived. A creamy heirloom tomato and red pepper soup disappeared almost immediately, followed by a choice of grilled calamari or oyster mushrooms, served on a ragu of white beans and roasted peppers. But it was the main course that had us sitting up a little straighter.
As a steakhouse, steak is Butcher Boys’ speciality, and they did not disappoint. The beef fillet was buttery and exceptionally soft; paired with crisp rosemary-salted fries and creamed spinach, its richness is undercut by another sip of Nicolas.
It occurred to me somewhere between courses that perhaps friendship has undergone its own form of optimisation. We know what is happening in each other’s lives because we exchange voice notes from cars, desks and supermarket queues. But knowing what’s happening isn’t quite the same thing as sitting opposite someone long enough for the conversation to wander somewhere neither of you intended.
By then, our conversation with my friend had expanded to encompass the other two women at our table: a lab technician and an agricultural specialist with a working farm. As I tucked into tiramisu and my friend sipped her Dom Pedro, conversation wandered between jobs, relationships, heartbreak and her journey to and from Mauritius. It was the more civilised equivalent of drunk girls making friends in the club bathroom and precisely the kind of unexpected connection and openness that I love about female friendship.
By the time our plates were cleared and our glasses emptied, four hours of good conversation and fabulous food had passed without a single text, ping or email demanding our attention.
Luxury is often expressed through abundance: more courses, rarer ingredients, older wine. But perhaps the most luxurious part of it all was simply having the time and giving ourselves permission to properly experience what was already in front of us.
Later, back home, my partner had made his way through almost half of the Boschendal champagne truffles we’d been sent home with before I had much chance to practise my newfound commitment to mindful tasting. Some pleasures, apparently, still benefit from speed.
I’m not entirely convinced we found Tuscany in Kyalami, but for four hours we tasted, talked, laughed and paid attention to little else. In a world designed to make everything quicker and easier, there was something wonderfully indulgent about having nowhere else we needed to be.
Bella Night, a collaboration between Butcher Boys and Boschendal, continues with a series of themed dinners until December 2026. Tickets are R950 per person and include a welcome drink, five-course paired menu, guided wine and sensory tasting, and take-home gift.
Reservations can be made via Dineplan or by contacting JP on 076 197 1640 or at jp@butcherboysgrill.co.za.
Wanted
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.