It was a Sunday bustling with holidaymakers making it very crowded and undesirable in Knysna to head out to our usual haunts for lunch until I had a brainwave — what literally turned out to be an Edison moment.
Last year, the Knysna Oyster Festival wooed journalists from all over the country for a couple days, taking them to special spots on the greater Knysna Garden Route area.
On the agenda was a visit to Rosie’s Steak Bar in Sedgefield.
It so happened that an oyster eaten at lunch had pretty much felled me, so when our group headed out for dinner there was no ways I could leave the safety of a bathroom.
At that point I wasn’t actually even sure I was going to live.
They all came back raving about wagyu burgers and steaks to die for and since then I have had FOMO.
I took a chance on Sunday and phoned at the last minute to see if there was space.
Eureka, owner Leigh Rau said there was a table for us. I had already checked out the photo of the steak on their website that is so inviting that you can smell it, and my mouth was watering.
Rosie’s Steak Bar is located in Sedgefield above the Sedge Links Golf Club just off the N2.
It’s next to a mashie golf course and a padel court, and of course Gericke’s Beach, a spot famous on the Garden Route for snorkelling in pristine rock pools.
From Plett it’s less than an hour, from Knysna less than half an hour, and the steaks are good enough to justify a trip from George — something locals regularly do.
It’s a favourite haunt with swallows who come back regularly every year in the summer.
I see Leigh greeting them like old friends.
Then there are overseas guests, a growing number of Swiss tourists, who are just blown away by the price of meat here served with chips and salad or veg, because in many countries you pay for every single offering on the plate.
The first time I tasted wagyu beef was in New Zealand.
A friend who had emigrated treated us to a hideously expensive South African restaurant in Auckland that served wagyu and they charged extra for every morsel on the plate like the potato, as if the steak bill wasn’t already hefty enough.
Rosie’s Steak Bar is in its ninth year of operation and it is known for perfectly grilled steaks, wagyu meat from Japanese cows and hearty roasts.
While the focus here is on red meat, there is a chicken schnitzel on the menu and I saw an attractive vegetarian platter heading to one of the tables.
The décor at Rosie’s is unusual, quirky.
With black lace covering table cloths in blue or purple, it’s almost gaudy, but not.
The placemats are of flowers, it’s bling and glitzy, it’s bohemian, the huge chandeliers take pride of place, and the view usurps all of this.
On the day we were there, the wind was strong and our vista was over the Swartvlei lake.
Windsurfers and kitesurfers were hurtling across the water, the view framed by the Outeniqua mountains in the background.
Rosie’s Steak Bar is only open for lunch on Sundays but it’s open most nights.
Leigh says it’s just as pretty in the evenings.
Guests come to watch the moon rise and traverse the mountain range as it shines on the water creating a luminescence. Fairy lights sprinkled around the terrace add to the atmosphere.
Leigh has been in the hospitality industry for 19 years and Rosie’s has been hers for the last three years, during which time she has added the wagyu steaks and burgers to the menu.
She tells us that she grew up in the Eastern Cape eating T-bone steaks and malva pudding, and when it comes to meat, she knows her stuff.
She enjoys chicken feet and cow brains as well as marrow bones, which are on the menu at Rosie’s.
Her father, a cattle farmer, could tell what the animals had been grazing just from the taste of the fresh milk, so she was groomed in the finer nuances of meat products from an early age.
First step is sourcing the highest quality, very best meat available, which comes from a butcher in George, she says.
Leigh is so particular about the choice of meat that she explains a lot has to do with how it feels, how it bends in her hands, and before any cut of meat is served to customers it is cooked and tasted in the kitchen here.
She carefully inspects the meat, checking the marbling of fat, checking that a little bit of white is indeed fat and not sinew.
All the steaks here are aged for at least a month and have passed the taste test in the kitchen.
We ask her how to choose from fillet, sirloin or ribeye steaks on the menu and Leigh suggests sticking to what we usually have.
“If you usually eat fillet then stick to it,” is her advice because each cut has its own flavour.
She insists that sirloin steak must be eaten with a fried egg on top of it.
“The fat from the egg and the garlic butter on the steak create the perfect taste and texture,” she says, and it’s such a winner I might just copy this trick at home.
When it comes to wagyu steak “it’s just a beautiful piece of meat,” says Rosie, but it comes at a hefty price.
A wagyu flat iron steak will set you back R450 for 200g.
It gets its name because of the shape.
The flat iron steak is a specific cut taken from the shoulder (chuck) of the animal and when the muscle is trimmed correctly and the sinew removed, the steak ends up flat, broad and rectangular, resembling an old-fashioned metal flat iron used for pressing clothes.
A fascinating thing I learn from Leigh is how the wagyu hamburger patties are made here.
Only minced meat is used. Leigh considers it sacrilege to add eggs or bread, God forbid crumbs.
“It’s all in the spanking of the meat, working it and literally slapping it, applying pressure until it knits on its own,” she says chuckling because there are times when the sounds of the handling the meat resonate from the kitchen area.
I had a wagyu burger and it is all that it is cracked up to be.
Mark had a sirloin that was melt in your mouth tender and perfect with the egg.
We finish off with a malva and I ask what actually goes into this traditional South African dish, only to find out that with the butter and other sweet ingredients it is enough on its own to blow up an entire day’s calories, and then probably some more!
Considering the price of meat anywhere these days, Rosie’s Steak Bar is not shockingly expensive and all meat dishes come with generous salads or veg and chips.
It’s a breeze for swallows or overseas guests.
A fillet costs R250, a sirloin R220, a ribeye or T-bone R315 and they offer lamb chops for R292.
Leigh says her prices go up every October and although she hates putting prices up, she has no choice.
They have a most unusual wine list.
A carafe of A.A. Badenhorst is R65 and yields two glasses of wine.
A Hartenberg Doorkeeper is R80 a carafe, but you can have a Boschkloof Syrah for R520 a bottle.
Leigh knows her wines, has tasted them all and as such plays sommelier, between the glass and plate, very well.
Van Morrison is playing in the background and the lyrics fit perfectly with our Sunday lunch.
“When it’s not raining, there’ll be days like this, when there’s no one complaining there’ll be days like this…”
The Herald
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