Our fourth judge for the 2015 Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Restaurant Awards is Siba Mtongana.

Siba is an award-winning food writer, celebrity TV chef, food judge and passionate foodie with an authentic grounding in Africa. She has a degree in food and consumer sciences, majoring in food, food science and nutrition. Her show on the Food Network, Siba’s Table, is broadcast to over 130 countries around the world in Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Australia and the USA  – in over 60 million homes in America alone. She’s the first South African to achieve this. She’s also one of the main judges for Chopped SA and currently contributes on a monthly basis to the award-winning Woolworths TASTE magazine. She is a former food editor of Drum magazine, and her previous cooking show, Cooking with Siba won a South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) award in 2013 for best lifestyle and variety show in its first season. She’s been invited to international food festivals to share her knowledge of food and to conduct cooking masterclasses. Her latest invitation is for the Taste of Abu Dhabi in the Middle East beginning of November this year. Siba is an ambassador for Foodbank South Africa and is very passionate with helping the less privileged, especially children.

We asked Siba to reveal what she’s looking for in a top restaurant. Watch the video to see her answers – and you could win a KitchenAid mixer worth R7999 from mblife, Mercedes-Benz SA’s lifestyle website. Click here to enter.

Viewing on mobile? Click here to watch the video on YouTube.