South Africa’s culinary landscape is as diverse as its people, shaped by heritage, regional ingredients and the deep-seated traditions that influence its chefs. To examine this, we asked four chefs to reflect on their heritage, to see how it shaped them, and how they weave their culture and provenance into their cooking today.

When examining what makes South Africa’s culinary scene great, it would be remiss not to start in Cape Town: the best food city in the world according to Time Out magazine, and the cultural heartland of the Cape Malay community.

“Cape Malay cuisine is in my blood. It’s everything I do,” says Anwar Abdullatief, owner of The Happy Uncles (South Africa’s first fully halaal fine-dining restaurant) as well as Barakat at the V&A Waterfront’s Time Out Market, focused on contemporary Cape Malay cuisine. “I’m blessed to come out of a home where food was everything. We may not have had much, but food was always king.”

Chef Anwar Abdullatief

Like most local chefs, Anwar didn’t think much of his own heritage when he first started cooking, and found himself immersed in classical French cuisine. “I didn’t know what I was doing. No young chef knows; all they know is they love cooking,” he explains. “So my base for cooking was classical French.” But once he realised fine dining is just a platform for refined food, he began to think about incorporating his heritage into his cooking, especially as he was opening The Happy Uncles. “I missed my cuisine, I missed the food that I grew up eating, and I slowly incorporated flavours of my life into the dishes at The Uncles.”

To read the full story about all the chefs featured, grab your copy of the 2025 Eat Out Magazine – on shelf at your nearest Woolies or online for R130.