Young chef inspired to bring families together through food

A heightened interest in food for Mduduzi Ngwenya started when he was still at school and his sisters would return for the holidays from their tertiary education institutions and cook meals outside of the traditional basic, staple traditional ones their mother had always made for them.

“Suddenly I was no longer eating sorghum with beans, samp and stews or maize meal and instead I found myself devouring and relishing pastas with different types of sauces, cottage pies and even soufflés.

“Meals that I had always thought were meant only for special occasions were now being dished up almost every day by my sisters,” explained Ngwenya, who hails from Brakpan.

“I also realised then that if meals are that good and tasty, they bring the whole family together, and that’s been my inspiration ever since.”

After leaving school, Ngwenya enrolled at Capsicum Culinary Studio’s Boksburg campus to study for a three-year year Advanced Culinary Chef Programme.

ALSO CHECK: 300k more learners as budget cuts challenge education sector

Two years later, after completing the practical component of the course, he left to take up a full-time job to work in the kitchen of a Bedfordview-based insurance company canteen.

But then along came the Covid pandemic and lockdown, and Ngwenya found himself retrenched and back home with time on his hands to think about his future.

“I decided that once the restrictions were lifted I would go back to my studies, so when it was all over I returned to Capsicum and completed my diploma,” he said.

Following his graduation in 2022, Ngwenya was offered a position with Food by Andrew Draper, a catering company based in Muldersdrift that he had always longed to work for, and it was while there that he was contacted by Capsicum, earlier this year, and offered the opportunity to interview with Qatar Airways for a position with their subsidiary company, Qatar Duty Free.

He landed the job and now finds himself based in Doha (the capital city of Qatar), working as a commis chef in five outlet restaurants operating in the city’s Hamad International Airport.

ALSO CHECK: Embrace the twists and turns of your learning journey: Focus on electrical engineering

“I work the preparation areas for five eateries – Usta Doner, Wok to Walk, Jwala, Remman Café and Baldna Express – sending out orders on the al-a-carte menu, ensuring stock levels meet daily production requirements, maintaining the rigorous food safety protocols that have been put in place and overseeing the quality of all the dishes sent out,” he said.

“My days are long, and I work full 12-hour shifts for five days a week. But I am really enjoying it, working hard and learning a lot.”

On his days off, Ngwenya goes sightseeing and almost always finds a new restaurant to try out, savouring the mix of Arabic and Asian cuisines, many of them with strong Indian influences and flavours.

There is also a vast number of foreign nationals he has connected with and he enjoys meeting up with them and sharing experiences about their time in Qatar and finding out about the culture and culinary delights of their home countries.

Apart from his Qatar Airways role, Ngwenya also owns a catering company called Grills Catering which he says will be fully operational, at its peak and staffed by at least eight full-time employees within the next five years.

“Grills was born from an idea I had while studying at Capsicum after we were tasked with setting up a market day for an open day on campus.

“The success of the event brought Grills to life and after my lectures I’d take it to the night markets in and around the East Rand,” said Ngwenya.

“Currently Grills is on hold until I return which will hopefully be sometime in 2028.”

So, is there anything else the “guy from Brakpan” misses apart from Grills?

“I miss my family,” he said. “My mother and father still live in the same house and, of my sisters who inspired me to get into cooking, the eldest, Zandile, has started her own beauty boutique while my other sister, Nomaswasi, is working as an HR manager at a bank in Pretoria.

“I can’t wait to see them all again and have the whole family sit down over a shared meal that I’ve created and prepared for them.”