After a gap of five years, Bailli Délégué Llewellyn Buckley-Marais was delighted to be able to reinstate South Africa’s participation in the Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs Competition.

He enthused, “In this year’s local Bailliage heats, we welcomed 13 entrants: eight from the Cape, three from Gauteng and two from KZN. Considering logistics and practicalities, competition venues were merged to Cape Town (“the Mother City”) and Johannesburg, with out-of-town entrants flown to their closest station.”

Llewellyn continued, “All competitors participated only with the support of existing Chaîne associates, which this year included Fusion Cooking School, Saxon Hotel, the Chef Training and Innovation Academy, Salt at Waterford, Table Bay Hotel, Peninsula All Suite Hotel, Southern Sun The Cullinan, Delaire Graff Estate, Grootbos Private Nature Reserve and Birkenhead House.

Each of these establishments submitted competitors and sponsored their participation at the two competition venues, this year being the Cape Town Institute of Culinary Arts under the helm of Letitia Prinsloo, and Pretoria’s Capital Hotel School, ably steered by Ronel Bezuidenhout.”

The regional competitions followed the time-honoured tradition of a “secret box” of mystery ingredients, with 30 minutes for the young chefs to write a three-course menu and then three and a half hours to cook, bake and whatever they need to do before plating their offerings.

After last Thursday’s two regional competitions, the top two were announced in each case and these four winners are guaranteed entry in the national competition come April 2025, with third-placed entrants invited along to gain from the experience.

Congratulations went to Johannesburg winners Amahle Sosiba in First Place and Elizabeth Nothando Ncube as Runner-up and to Cape Town’s top placed Sheldon Wolfe with Caeleb Naidoo as Runner-up.

They will now compete for countrywide podium positions with the winner being eligible to enter the next International Final of the Jeunes Chefs Competition scheduled to take place in the spring of 2026 at a location yet to be announced.

“Any competition of this scale relies heavily on sponsorship. Fundraising is par for the course, since we have to finance judges’ and entrants’ stay-overs, transport and sundries, and of course our entrant’s international participation in Thailand,” said Bailli Délégué Llewellyn.

Accordingly, Llewellyn expressed his great appreciation to Bidfood South Africa, to Global Knives and to Kenwood for their support. Furthermore, he paid special tribute to main sponsor SAMAC (Macadamias South Africa) for its cash injection and macadamia products available for the occasion.

Finally, he added a special shout-out to Conseiller Culinaire Craig Cormack for his support as well as a deep gratitude to the Bailliage of Gauteng for joining forces with their Cape Town colleagues in planning these events.

Article based on a press release by Mimi Finestone of Goji PR

Video from the Cape Town event courtesy of Hylton Jandrell, Wavecrest Pictures
Photographs are exclusively from the Johannesburg event