Main content

The secrets of a Soweto chef’s success

Fine dining chef Lesego Semenya is on a mission to kick snobbery out of Joburg’s kitchens.

Celebrity chef Lesego Semenya is one of South Africa's most recognisable black faces in a fine dining industry still dominated by white personalities. Growing up in Soweto at the end of apartheid Lesego was one of the first wave of black children who got bussed to school in white areas and says this gave him the skills to operate in both worlds as an adult. He tells Andile Masuku how a game show, a pie and keeping it real has been key to his success and why he's on a mission to take the snobbery out of the haute cuisine kitchen. Lesego has written a book called 'Dijo', which means food.

Image: Lesego Semenya
Credit: Claire Gunn/Jacana Media

Release date:

Available now

23 minutes

Featured in...

Podcast