Residence Retreat
March 16th - 22nd, 2026 • Cape Town, South Africa
Residence is a community-driven retreat rooted in local ingredients and seasonal produce. Guided by farmers and the land itself, you are invited to explore what lies beneath an ingredient’s history, harvesting not only with your hands, but with your soul. You honor tradition while gently pushing it into the unknown, transforming memory into novelty.
Through cooking, study, and holistic experimentation, you immerse yourself in felt experiences and shared discovery. You step into a world that shifts, evolves, and surprises. As an ode to the ingredients and their stories, you will create recipes both collectively and individually, culminating in a book that you will take home with you that captures this journey of exploration, transformation, and unforgettable memory.
How can we harvest with our souls? What lies beneath a product’s history? How can we transform traditions into novelties?
In Residence, we share the joint need for felt experiences.
Learning through exploring the unknown, with an infinite amount of inspiration.
Residence almost sounds like resonance , it should feel like your own known world, full of its own memories and traditions, is being pushed in to the unknown.
For the main force behind the spirit of Residence, we aim to be guided by local’s ingredients, cook with them, study their history and experiment with their culinary & holistic possibilities, and ultimately transmute them in to dishes.
As an ode to the ingredients, we will, in group & individually, create recipes that will be collected into a book. This book will encapsulate our joint mission of unforgettable explorative memories.
From making biltong, to harvesting fynbos and making our own essential oils.
From milking cows,
to cheese making, to butter slapping, to olive oil harvesting.
Guided by a select team of facilitators, including chefs, botanists, farmers & creative thinkers, your ideas will be pushed in to the collective Fruiting Bod and become tools for navigating the complexities of daily living.
Retreat Manifesto
Residence is a community-driven experience focused on local ingredients and seasonal produce. The main thread runs through the most natural part of co-living: food. The land around us - fields, rivers, mountains, ocean - becomes our classroom. We come here to explore, experiment, learn, and share what we discover.
Throughout the week, guests cook both independently and in intuitive small groups, sometimes guided by the chef. We spend time together getting to - the landscape, the products, and the techniques - tasting, testing, and building skills in a hands-on way.
On the final day, everyone cooks for everyone using fresh, locally produced ingredients. We gather for a big Residence dinner at a long community table - each person contributing something to the meal. We photograph, take notes, and capture the recipes, with the intention to publish them as a small book or zine: a record of what the week created.
To shape the six days, we invite a small group of facilitators to share knowledge across food, land-based practices, and wellbeing.
Program
What your days will look like
Retreat location
Kleinkloof Farm • Piketberg, Cape Town, 7550, South Africa
Residence found a place that can hold a whole week - not as an escape, but as an immersion. Kleinkloof Farm is integrated into the landscape of a fertile, working area, where olives grow and the rhythm of the land is real. It sits against the Piketberg Mountain range, with wide, breathtaking views across the Rooi Karoo towards the Winterhoek mountains.
It’s also the kind of place that naturally becomes a small community. Close enough to gather, cook, and share long tables - and spacious enough to retreat, rest, and let new thoughts settle. This is where we live together for a while: exchanging knowledge, learning something new each day, and building the experience as a group, step by step.
A small cluster of former labourers’ cottages has been thoughtfully transformed into separate self-catering houses, each decorated in a luxurious yet understated way that lets the landscape take the lead. Every cottage has its own garden and pool, offering space for slow mornings, long warm afternoons, and unhurried summer days spent resting under the sun.
Accommodation
The property includes five cottages, each with a different room setup (double beds and single beds), with a maximum capacity of 16 guests. Every cottage has its own equipped kitchen - a small sanctuary where Residence continues between the main group sessions: self-made breakfasts, shared prep, small food experiments, late-night conversations. Each cottage also has a private terrace with an intimate, tucked-away feel; some include splash pools or hot tubs, and a few offer dedicated outdoor areas for braai evenings and gathering under the open sky.
The main kitchen is at the Farm House, where the chef-curated food experiences take place - our shared centre, where ingredients become dishes, and dishes become memory.
Pricing
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€1,650.00
Newly renovated rooms where Italian 16th century elements meet modern minimalist design. All rooms are equipped with comfortable beds and soft sheets. The rooms have a private bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub.
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€1,450.00
Newly renovated rooms where Italian 16th century elements meet modern minimalist design. All rooms are equipped with comfortable beds and soft sheets. The rooms have a private bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub. Option to sleep together or seperately.
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€1,450.00
Newly renovated rooms where Italian 16th century elements meet modern minimalist design. All rooms are equipped with comfortable beds and soft sheets. The rooms have a private bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub. Option to sleep together or separately.
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€1,350.00
Newly renovated room with original stone floors and minimalist, modern interior. All rooms are equipped with comfortable beds and soft sheets. Shared bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub.
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€1,300.00
Newly renovated rooms where Italian 16th century elements meet modern minimalist design. All rooms are equipped with comfortable single beds and soft sheets. The rooms have a private bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub.
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€1,250.00
Newly renovated rooms where Italian 16th century elements meet modern minimalist design. All rooms are equipped with comfortable single beds and soft sheets. Shared bathroom with toilet and shower or bathtub.
Deposit Payment
€500.00 is required as an installment payment for this retreat.
The remaining amount is due 14 days prior to the retreat via bank transfer.
Monday - Arrival
Please arrive by 15:00.
Sunday - Departure + closing arc
After breakfast, we host a small Residence market with our facilitators, so you can take a piece of the week home.
Check-out is around 12:00.
In the afternoon, we travel back to Cape Town for the final accord: a four-hour sailing experience to see the city from the ocean (departure at 16:00) — a quiet closing moment to let the week settle.