This ain’t Hell’s Kitchen
CHEF BILLINGHAM: TV SHOWS ARE UNREALISTIC – IT’S NOT ALL SWEARING Saffer ‘by default’ runs HTA School of Culinary Art.
Achef’s kitchen is like a machine, timed to perfection, managed to the extreme and shaped by design to create everything from stock standard catering fare through to art on a plate. It’s chef Stephen Billingham’s passion, and food, his way of life.
Billingham’s culinary journey began in Nottingham in England, where he pursued his initial training. His aspirations as a young chef took him to London, then Manchester and eventually to Cape Town and Umhlanga with the Southern Sun group.
Later, he was transferred to the Johannesburg Sun, when it had just opened in the late 1980s and this was where his love for South Africa really took hold. It was also where he realised that South Africa needs a mighty fine cooking school.
“After 1994 tourism to South Africa began to flourish and, concomitant to that, the opportunities in hospitality,” said Billingham. But he couldn’t find a school that delivered what he thought the industry needed. So he started one.
The HTA School of Culinary Art was established in 2002.
“The company was started to address a market where you had thousands of people working in the industry qualified by experience, but with no formal certification or qualification,” he said.
HTA has since injected hundreds of qualified chefs into the industry, many of them eventually poached by global kitchens. The school, based in Randburg, is his personality manifested in the material world. He collects stuff. Kitchen stuff. In one training kitchen a collection of pepper grinders line display shelves while another showcases his collection of antique scales. There’s a boardroom that’s a wall-to-wall celebration of whiskey and whisky, hidden behind a secret door that’s lined with books, while another is a museum to legendary South African chef Bill Gallagher. In fact, the entire property is filled with small outbuildings that each represent an aspect of Billingham’s gregarious and affection for personality collecting.
There’s a tree house that was built at the request of his son, a shebeen-like pad where students can have lunch and all around old road signs, another passion, and odds and ends that give character to every nook and cranny. “I am a hoarder,” he said, “and proud of it.”
Billingham has become an influential chef in Mzansi and has consulted on shows like MasterChef where his role included providing contestants with basic training in hygiene, sanitation, cooking methods and plating skills.
He also continues to play a significant role in job creation initiatives and learnerships with projects extending across Africa and the Middle East.
As a career choice, becoming a chef has surged in popularity, he said. “Television has glamourised the profession with the endless hours of reality shows and cooking shows across almost every channel,” he said.
“It caused a change in perception toward chefs, but a more realistic portrayal of a kitchen’s reality should be forthcoming.
“It’s not Hell’s Kitchen. It’s not all foul language and swearing.”
When he cooks at home, Billingham prefers simplicity. “You do not need to create an elaborate meal to really enjoy the flavour of whatever you’ve got on the stove,” he said.
Presently he commutes between his home in England and SA. “You could say I am South African by default,” he shared. The country and its people are dear to his heart. After all, this is where his career really got going.
TV has glamourised the profession