But the clincher comes with dinner.
The owners are a trio of chefs with impressive credentials and the menu is small but offers an impressive array of immaculately cooked dishes. They cheat a bit, but all's fair when it comes to immaculately cooked meals.
I don't know whether you'd define a request for your order by five when dinner starts at six-thirty as cheating, and, frankly, I don't care if it is if the arrangement is going to deliver the same tender meat falling off the bone lamb shank I had. If you've tried cooking lamb shanks you'd know they need a long slow cook, which isn't possible without pre-cooking if you're going strictly a la carte, and if you're headed down that road you're also headed for sorry sir we've run out or what the hell do we do with the leftovers territory.
No, ask me to order early and deliver something as good as this and you won't be getting any arguments from me.
We started the meal with a cob of rustic bread and two dips, a rather tasty exercise that put us in the mood, and Madam had the entrecôte with wild mushroom sauce. I thought I'd asked for herb butter but Madam wasn't objecting.
We washed the mains down with a Coonawarra Cabernet from Angoves that was definitely Coonawarra and definitely Cabernet. Not, perhaps, a label you tend to associate with the district, but everything Coonawarra Cabernet should be. Once again, no complaints.
And no complaints about the mud cake or lemon and rose sorbet we had for dessert. Although neither of us really needed either, both plates went back almost spotless.
Getting to sleep wasn't, as previously indicated, an easy exercise, but early to bed and late to rise delivers the required number of hours, so who's complaining?