AFRICA ON THE MENU
Lentswe Bhengu swopped business suits for chef ’s whites and after hosting several cooking shows and cooking for Cyril Ramaphosa, it’s safe to say he’s not looking back
HE’S hosted his own web series on African cuisine, judged several TV cooking shows and is regarded as one of SA’s up-and-coming celebrity chefs.
But all that pales before the significance of a recent event that will go down as his No 1 bucket-list item accomplished: cooking for the new South African president.
It all started when Lentswe Bhengu, an African cuisine maestro, was approached by Brand SA to be the head chef at a South African gala at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Brand SA “knows my story”, he says, and knew about the work he’d done to get where he is today. “They said, ‘We’d love for you to cook for our delegates at the World Economic Forum’,” Lentswe recalls.
“The South African delegation hosts a gala dinner every year but this was the first time they would be using a South African chef,” he explains.
He was delighted to be invited, of course – but it was only once he’d arrived in Davos that he realised how auspicious the gathering was and the magnitude of the job he had to do.
“Leaders and heads of business from all around the globe meet there to plan the economic future of the world. I thought, ‘Yoh, I can’t burn the pots hey, my future employers are going to be here’,” he says, laughing.
He’d prepared to serve 95 people – but when Cyril Ramaphosa, who was then deputy president, confirmed his attendance the booking went up to 110 people. The president of Mauritius, Ameenah Gurib, and SA finance minister Malusi Gigaba were also there.
Lentswe (32) prepared a menu full of South African flair and flavour: a rosti with poached egg and carrot purée for starters, samp risotto as a main and amagwinya (vetkoek) and dolcelatte, or soft blue cheese, for dessert.
“Yes, I served breakfast as a starter,” he says. “I always start with food I like because then I’ll execute it better. I love an eggs Benedict but I wanted to make it more South African.
“I didn’t serve the dessert with any spoons – I wanted everyone to eat with their hands. You see people going from strangers over starters to friends by dessert.”
So did he get to chat to the man who would soon be SA president? Briefly, Lentswe says – Ramaphosa complimented him on his menu.
He had more interaction with Gigaba. The minister doesn’t eat carbs as a rule but when he saw the delegates enjoying the amagwinya so much he pulled Lentswe to one side.
“He said, ‘Look, don’t tell anyone because I’m Banting but just get me a small portion of that’.
“And I stood in the corner thinking, ‘Yes!’” he recalls, punching the air.
LENTSWE swopped three-piece suits for an apron seven years ago when he left the corporate world with nothing but his father’s words of encouragement. “The funny thing is, I left those people in the corporate world – now I’m here cooking for them,” he says, laughing.
Welcoming us into his studio in Newtown, Joburg, he’s living his dream. Lentswe has always loved food and his happiest times were sharing meals with his large, noisy family of 20 siblings while growing up in Durban.
But it didn’t occur to him to become a chef straight away. He studied towards a B Com at Varsity College in Cape Town then worked at various companies, including Marriott Investments, Old Mutual and Wesgro.
Yet he wasn’t happy. “I was young, I was earning a lot of money, but when I was 24 I had a talk with my dad.
“It was his 70th birthday and he was looking at all his grandchildren with pride. And I said, ‘Dad, I want that kind of happiness. Teach me how to achieve that now’. He said, ‘Everything you do from here onwards has to be fuelled by your happiness. If you don’t like the colour purple, don’t wear it. If you don’t like your relationship, leave.’”
As for his job, if it wasn’t making him happy he should try something else. “He said, ‘Even if it’s not paying you right now, you’ll be paid within your soul and the money will come’.”
Six months later Lentswe resigned and started chef training at The Culinary Academy in the Cape Winelands on his
L25th birthday. “It was like my second birth,” he says. “The reality of what I’d done really hit when I graduated and went back to Cape Town. I saw the same friends I used to hang out with but I couldn’t really afford what they could anymore. And that’s when my father’s teachings kicked in. I never dreamt things would happen so fast. I mean, of course, you don’t get to bed thinking you’re going to be mediocre tomorrow.” EN T SWE has worked at a number of top-notch restaurants in the Mother City, including The Roundhouse, which was rated the fourth best eatery in the country at the time, and Savoy Cabbage.
He also worked for several catering companies but knew it wasn’t quite for him. Using his natural talent for talking, he and his then-business partner, Jurgens van Wyk, started a YouTube show, Africa on a Plate.
“The first episode we shot, we went to Gugulethu, drove around and found a woman called Victoria, to whom I owe career.
“She was making skopo, or sheep’s head, which she makes in an open pot over a flame and serves for R40 a pop.
“We put it on YouTube and the first week we got almost 4 000 views, which was big for this unknown person. But it was about the content – celebrating and discovering and learning about different cultures in food.”
Mweb later gave the show a page on its website, filming 12 episodes of five minutes each and releasing one episode a week. “Mweb dubbed us the first African web series on the continent and that’s how The Africa Channel found us,” Lentswe says.
The Africa Channel, an American television network, bought and commissioned Africa on a Plate, which gave him an opportunity to travel across the country and the continent.
Since then Lentswe has been a regular at the Good Food & Wine Show and hosting private dining experiences called Taste of Africa.
Last year he was involved in the judging of three TV shows – Flava Queens, KFC Taste Kitchen and The Great South African Bake Off.
Lentswe is now working on a spin-off of Africa on a Plate, which he’ll be filming from his apartment.
“This will be staying within our borders but discovering different cultures within South Africa. We’ve started researching five cultures and we’ve already started shooting the pilot.”
He has a lot on his plate but Davos has been a definite highlight, he says.
“I left that place feeling like this is going to be a great [year],” he adds, “and a great chapter in my life.” S
‘You don’t get into bed thinking you’re going to be mediocre tomorrow’