Executive chef Kenny Ngubane dared to cook outside his comfort zone during the second Tsogo Sun’s Chef Challenge recently hosted at the Aarya restaurant in Montecasino.
Ngubane was tasked with preparing five courses taken from the Aarya menu for a group of selected ‘foodies’.
The challenge was created by the Tsogo Sun in order to take the hospitality group’s leading chefs away from dishes that they are familiar with in order to test their culinary abilities. Participants were also expected to serve the menu in a tented picnic-style area on the Montecasino grounds.
The first challenge in the series saw Chef Gareth Jordaan taking up the cooking gauntlet at the Lucé restaurant in Hyde Park in October of last year.
Ngubane was excited to take up the challenge next. “To be in an environment that I am not accustomed to is very liberating, and a breath of fresh air,” Ngubane said, adding that to him the most difficult aspect of the challenge was being outdoors without easy access to the resources he was used to.
The menu comprised five dishes from the Aarya menu including, canapes, a lamb pizzette starter, a mixed leaf salad, a trio of curries as the main course and an upside down lemon curd cheese cake for dessert.
Present at the challenge was Deena Naidoo, who was the first-ever winner of MasterChef South Africa in 2011. “I’m mostly here to support Kenny during his challenge. It’s also wonderful to spend some time outside the restaurant kitchen and with people who know and love food [like I do],” Naidoo told Fourways Review.
Ngubane started his cooking career in 1990 when he got his first job at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg after finishing matric. He has been with Tsogo Sun since 2007 and is now an executive chef at Montecasino, often working alongside his colleagues at Aarya.