Award Winners

Judging

Pete Goffe-Wood

They call thim the food alchemist, and he’s not to shy to smile at the compliment Garrulous Londoner Pete learnt the basics at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks before resturning to London to work in several leading West End restaurants. South African palates first took note of Pete’s culinary skills when he bacem executive chef at La Couronne in Franschhoek, which Conde Naste Traveller named on of the most exciting restaurants in the world in 200. A year later he embarded on his own maverick path, launching PGW Eat and taing on restaurant consultation work and events co-ordination as far afield as Bangkok, Sydney and Oman. Kis Kitchen Cowboys cooking workshops became a new drawcard when he started them in Cape Town in 2003, while contributing food articles to magazine and authoring Kitchen Cowboys and Blues Restaurant – the essence of Cape Town.

Letitia Prinsloo

Food and cooking are a heartfelt passion for culinary academic Letitia Prinsloo, who founded her Intitute of Culinary Arts in Stellenbosch a decade ago with a vision to cultivate a new generation of world-class chefs. Today it’s the country’s largest cooking school with a growing international reputation. Letitia, who has judged the Jeunes Commis Rôtisseurs Competitions for more than 14 years and who serves on the current panel for the World’s Fifty Best Restaurants awards, was recently appointed as Bailli for the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs’ Cape Chapter, a commitment which she devotes to the nurturing and development of young culinary professionals. Her gastronomic gurus are Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal and Roger Vergé, under whom she trained at his Moulins de Mougin in Provence. But there’s one more culinary influence: her beloved Ouma Ems, whose way with food inspired a South African culinary icon.

Arnold Tanzer

The section of Arnold Tanzer’s curriculum vitae that always catches people’s attention fi rst is his time spent in 1995 as executive chef for actor Michael Douglas and his family. Or perhaps the stint as chef to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. But there’s much more to Arnold’s career than merely schmoozing with the rich and famous. A member of the board of directors of the South African Chefs Association and continental director for Africa of the World Association of Chefs Societies, Arnold began his career in the Netherlands in 1989 and was soon working in top hotels and on board luxury ocean liners. Lured by the African sun, he now fi nds himself in demand as a culinary mover and shaker who lectures at Prue Leith’s food and wine academy and whose Jozi-based Food on the Move consultancy focuses on menu and food development for the industry and corporate events management.

Review Team

Abigail Donnelly (AD)
Abigail is the editor of Eat Out and food editor for Taste. She adores food – lives it, dreams it and cooks it. She also loves HP sauce and spending early weekend mornings at Milnerton market collecting pretty antique plates, old garden gnomes and ancient cookery books without pictures.

Clifford and Maryke Roberts (C&MR)
Clifford and Maryke are fulltime journalists with a passion for good living. On the subject of food and wine, they have written for amongst others, Hotel & Restaurant, Good Taste and Wine magazines. They are regular contributors to Wineland and Fynproe magazines as well as Die Burger.

Diane de Beer (DbB)
Diane de Beer is an arts’ journalist at Independent Newspapers and also writes about Pretoria’s art scene in general, with wine and dine being one of her regular beats. With the city now the diplomatic capital, restaurants have taken on a strong cosmopolitan flavour, which puts Pretoria on the culinary map.

Francois Ferreira (FF)
Known as South Africa’s food evangelist, Francois Ferreira has a passion for local cuisine. He is head of the Eden School of Culinary Art in George, consults restaurants, trains chefs in restaurants and services staff. He believes that the restaurant experience must have three essential components – good food, good wine and good service.

Graham Howe (GH)
Graham Howe is wine and food editor of Habitat and an associate editor of Travel and Upfront. He writes on food, wine and travel for a wide range of publications and keeps his palate on the pulse of all global culinary trends by dining at the world’s hottest destinations on his high-fl ying assignments.

Ingrid Shevlin (IS)
Ingrid Shevlin co-ordinates SM, the Sunday Tribune’s arts and leisure magazine and their TV Guide. It’s a job that keeps her desk- and production- bound. Her only pleasure is food – and her dining out column. Sad but true!

Bridget Hilton-Barber (BHB)
Former editor of SAA’s in-flight magazine and also travel correspondent for Radio 702, Bridget Hilton-Barber gave it all up and went to live in the countryside, outside Tzaneen in Limpopo. Now she writes books and counts her cats.

Coenie Visser (CV)
After a stint as reporter at Die Burger and lecturer in journalism and communication in Xhosa and Afrikaans at the Cape Technikon, Coenie tried his hand at translating and copywriting. A midlife crisis took him to the village of Greyton, where he started the popular Oak & Vigne Café.

Emile Joubert (EJ)
Emile Joubert works as a media consultant in the wine industry and is based in Stellenbosch. He writes on food for the magazines Weg, Go and Fynproe as well as on wine for Rapport. He is a former finalist in the Men’s Health Braai King contest, where he represented SA in Australia and braaied for his country.

Frank Chemaly (FC)
Frank Chemaly is news editor of the Sunday Tribune and covers the Durban beat for Wine magazine. By day he prevents readers from seeing the true horror of lumpy grammar and by night he’s guardian of classic recipes, putting firmly in their place those who insist on including bacon in Caesar salad or cheddar on eggs Benedict.

Greg Landman (GL)
Greg’s background in film distribution and marketing has taken him eating in the world’s film capitals, from Cannes to Hollywood. He is a bon vivant and a regular writer for Country Life. He believes, as did Auntie Mame, that ‘life is a feast, and most poor suckers are starving’.

Janine Walker (JW)
Janine Walker has been working with words and images for over 20 years, as a reporter, critic, columnist and editor. In 1999 she was inducted as a Chevalier, Dame de la Chaîne of the Chaîne des Rotisseurs and in the same year was a founder member of the South African Food and Wine Writers Guild.

Lisa van Aswegen (LvA)
Lisa is the assistant editor of Eat Out, editor of Time Out. These titles perfectly marry her love of food and obsession with all things Cape Town. She was in her element reviewing the culinary offering in the lush Garden Route. And her best meal there? Getting engaged over breakfast at the stylish The Grand in Plett.

Marlene van Eeden (MvE)
Marlene van Eeden eats non-stop. When she’s not out spying for Eat Out or Eat In, she eats with her eyes from her vast collection of cook books. And her biggest fear? That she will die before she has had time to make at least one dish from all her books.

Paul Murray (PM)
Paul Murray teaches history at Bishops and enjoys writing on the subject of food and history. He regularly talks at functions and events on C. Louis Leipoldt and, with Trevor Emslie, edited Leipoldt’s Food and Wine, The Valley and The Mask. He writes his column Murray’s Food Trails on www.litnet.co.za.

Roseanne Buchanan (RB)
Rosanne Buchanan lives and works as a journalist in Johannesburg. Her 10-year writing career has been linked to various food and lifestyle magazine titles. ‘Almost by default I have become a fussy eater who expects the best from a restaurant meal.’

Sarah Buitendach (SB)
Sarah Buitendach is a Johannesburg journalist who regularly contributes to magazines including House & Leisure, Style, Elle and Visi. She writes about everything from décor to the new MD’s of airlines but loves having a legitimate excuse for one of her favourite pastimes – eating out!

Zingi Mkefa (ZM)
Zingi Mkefa has been working for the Sunday Times for the last two years. It is with his varied experiences within the fields of arts, culture, leisure and lifestyle that Zingi joins Eat Out magazine as contributor. After receiving a Fulbright scholarship to study writing at New York University, Zingi now resides in New York City.

Julia Butcher (JB)
Ex-lifestyle editor of the Daily Dispatch in East London and now freelance writer, Julia Butcher left the rat race in Jo’burg six years ago to explore this quieter neck of the woods. She has made it her mission to find fabulous food in this region and believes things are definitely looking up for foodies here.

Marita Pieterse (MP)
Marita trained as a chef at Leith’s in London and now runs a cookery school in Pretoria where she hosts classes for hobby cooks and other interested parties. Apart from freelancing as a food writer and stylist, she has recently completed an exciting new cookbook on seasonal cooking in South Africa, Four Seasons.

Nikki Werner (NW)
Nikki Werner is the Food Editor of Fair Lady magazine. She likes to grow vegetables in her garden and loves a good stock. Some of her favourite things are vintage cook books, her pink kitchen aid, friends with eating-out stamina, exploring the food of foreign cities, and her partner Brandon.

Rinette Enslin (RE)
Chef Rinette Enslin’s passion for culinary excellence gave birth to the Olive Chef School in Bloemfontein. She is a Silwood Kitchens Graduate with 18 years of national and international experience and training. It is with this passionate attitude that she teaches her students to discover a new world in food.

Samantha Smith (SS)
Unable to boil water without scalding the pot, the cat and at least one body part, Samantha Smith opts to eat out. When she’s not overseeing the newsrooms of two major Eastern Cape newspapers, she trawls the city for new and exciting places to feast.

Vicki Sleet (VS)
Cape Town’s foodie explosion has been a joy for Vicki to witness, especially when writing for a publication like Eat Out where she got to experience local chefs’ innovations first-hand. She particularly enjoys the departure from stuffy dining to a solid café culture where easy eating is the order of the day.