Meet Our Speakers

Learn from, connect with, and be inspired by Africa's top culinary talent, restaurant leaders, and tourism and hospitality innovators. Expect honest insights, fresh thinking, and practical lessons from those shaping the future of the gastronomy industry – with many more speakers, experiences and exciting programme announcements still to come.

Pete Goffe-wood
Pete Goffe-Wood

MC, Celebrity Chef, writer

Peter Goffe-Wood – Food Alchemist

Peter has been a professional chef for the past 31 years.

He was classically trained at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks and worked in London for nine years where he cooked in some of the West End’s award winning restaurants. He returned to SA in 1999. Peter’s work as food alchemist has taken him from the banks of the Chobe river in Namibia to Bangkok, Hanoi and Sydney and to as far a field as Oman in the Persian Gulf.

He has also cooked in Paris, Budapest, Stuttgart, Istanbul, Zagreb & Moscow.

He is author of 4 cookbooks - A Life Digested, Fire for Life, Kitchen Cowboys and Blues Restaurant – the essence of Cape Town and has written for numerous publications on a freelance basis.

He was a judge on MasterChef SA on Mnet for four seasons and appeared at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown together with comedian, Chris Forrest in a cooking comedy show called - Don’t Burn You’re Sausage.

Peter is also a judge on Ultimate Braai Master on Etv, currently in its 9th season. He is currently consulting for the Azura & Marlin Beach lodges on Bengeurra Island in Mozambique.

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Katlego Mlambo

MC, Celebrity Chef

Liam Tomlin
Liam Tomlin

Chef and Restaurateur, Chefs Warehouse

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Johannes Richter

Executive Chef and Owner, The Livingroom at Summerhill Estate

Johanna, Maitre & Sommelier
Johanna Richter

maître d' and Sommelier, The Livingroom at Summerhill Estate

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Luckson Mare

Chef, The Livingroom at Summerhill Estate

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Jodi Gillespie

Executive Chef, Waterfront Properties

Jodi Gillespie

Jodi is a multi-award-winning culinary leader who has worked across luxury hotels, resorts and fine-dining restaurants in South Africa and internationally. She currently serves as Cluster Executive Chef and Head of Culinary for Newmark Hotels at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, providing culinary leadership across four hotels.

A Worldchefs Certified Rookie Judge, and level B national judge, Jodi is also a former director of the SACHEFS and Co-Founder of the Culinary and Service Professionals of South Africa (CSP-SA). Her work focuses on sustainable gastronomy, professional standards and developing the next generation of hospitality professionals.

Jodi brings to the Conference the perspective of both a practising Executive Chef and an industry leader working to shape the future of the profession. With over 2 decades of culinary experience, she brings first-hand experience of the evolving pressures facing kitchens from sustainability and commercial viability to skills development, leadership, staff wellbeing, and retention. Her current portfolio also includes Terrarium, recognised as 2026 EatOut Sustainable Restaurant Award, making sustainability a demonstrated part of her professional environment rather than solely an academic interest.

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Heinrich Stasiuk

Chef and Restaurateur, Wildthyme Restaurant Group

Upper Union - Chef Amori Burger JAN RAS PHOTOGRAPHY
Amori Burger

Executive Chef, Upper Union

Ntobeko Sikosana
Ntobeko Sikosana

Director, Joypass/Wine & More

jackie-cameron
Jackie Cameron

Owner, Jackie Cameron School of Food and Wine

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Dr Darlington Onojaefe

Senior Lecturer & Programme Coordinator, Graduate Centre for Management, Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Dr Darlington Onojaefe

Dr Darlington Onojaefe is a Senior Lecturer and Chair: Department Research Committee, Graduate Centre for Management, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), South Africa. He obtained his doctoral degree in 2009 and has developed an interdisciplinary academic profile connecting marketing, branding, strategic management and business development.

His expertise is focused on the application of marketing and brand-management principles to organisational, market and destination development, with growing emphasis on gastronomy branding, value chain for tourism development and the translation of strategic concepts into practical implementation frameworks. His work engages the relationship between identity, value creation, market positioning and sustainable tourism development.

Dr Onojaefe has collaborated with business and public-sector organisations on research, advisory and project implementation initiatives. He has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed publications and presented research at international conferences and seminars. He has supervised postgraduate research, served on the Academic Advisory Committee of the CSIR-DST Conference on Sustainable Human Settlements, and acted as an external examiner for postgraduate studies at several universities.

At the Gastronomy Africa Conference, his contribution focuses on branding gastronomy for tourism development, examining how culinary heritage, local identity, destination branding and value-chain participation can be integrated into an actionable gastronomy tourism implementation framework for African destinations.

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Amanda-Kotze-Nhlapo- (1)
Amanda Kotze-Nhlapo

Business Events and Tourism Strategist

Tatiana Piazza
Tatiana Piazza

SA Market Access Programme Sales Lead, ABALOBI

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Chef Trevor “Trey” Chikaura

Chef and pitmaster, Briskets & Biscuits

Palm House Boutique Hotel - Chef Gregory Henderson (1) (1)
Gregory Henderson

Executive Chef, The Palm House Boutique Hotel & Spa

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Lance Gibbons

CEO, Gastronomy Africa

Riana Andrews
Riana Andrews

Editor, Gastronomy Africa

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Allan Bolt

Director, SALR Services

Noluthando
Noluthando Ngcakani

Food journalist, News24

Allister-Esau
Allister Esau

Food Lead, V&A Waterfront

Vusi Mbatha
Vusi Mbatha

Executive Chef, Kruger Shalati

Joanne Smith
Joanne Smith

Reputation Strategist, Pillar9

Chef Lani
Chef Lani

Cultural Gastronomist, Architect of Indigenous futures

Brett Tungay new
Brett Tungay

National Chairperson, FEDHASA

Raymond Mhlanga
Raymond Mhlanga

Group Development Chef, Emperors Palace Hotels, Casino and Convention Resort

neil swart
Neil Swart

Chef and Restaurateur, The Belly Restaurant Group

anouchka horn
Anouchka Horn

Chef and Restaurateur, The Belly Restaurant Group

Raphaella Joannou 
Raphaella Joannou

Founder, The Savour Group

Raphaella Joannou

Raphaella is the founder of The Savour Group, home to two products: Savour: Your Recipes, a recipe-sharing app for home cooks built around community and kitchen confidence, and Savour: Kitchen OS, a operating system built for South African kitchen teams. A former data analyst and conversion rate optimisation specialist, she left corporate life for the food industry. What she learned building a community of home cooks inspired Savour: Kitchen OS, which brings the same thinking to professional kitchens to tackle hospitality’s biggest pain point: training, managing and keeping kitchen staff (happy).

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Mandla Mazibuko
Mandla Mazibuko

Creative Producer & Culinary Talent Manager

Raeesah Khan
Raeesah Khan

Lecturer, Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Durban University of Technology

Yudhika Sujanani
Yudhika Sunjanani

Chef, Restaurateur and Author

Neilwe Mashigo
Neilwe Mashigo

Publicist: Lifestyle and International Non-fiction, Penguin Random House South Africa