A Self-Taught Chef Turns to Immigrant Kitchens in South Africa

A self-taught chef in South Africa is drawing on restaurants run by immigrants for ingredients and ideas. He hopes the work will help counter rising xenophobia in the country, according to a report published this week by The New York Times.

The Times describes the chef as borrowing from the kitchens of immigrant-owned restaurants. The approach treats those establishments as a source of flavors and technique rather than as outsiders. The report frames the effort as a response to anti-migrant sentiment in South Africa.

The RSS summary of the Times article offers few further details. It does not name the dishes the chef cooks, the restaurants he draws from, or the cities where he works. The headline places the story in an anti-migrant South Africa, and the dateline is Johannesburg.

The premise is a familiar one in food writing. Immigrant cooks often run small restaurants that supply a city with cuisines it would otherwise lack. In this case, the chef is making a deliberate point of crediting that work. The Times reports that he sees the food as a way to push against hostility toward migrants.

NYC Restaurant Voice has not independently reported on the chef or his restaurants. This article relies solely on the Times summary and headline. Readers who want the full account, including the chef’s name, his background and his reasoning, should consult the original report.

The story lands in a week when many New Yorkers are thinking about how food and immigration intersect closer to home. A large share of the city’s restaurant workforce is foreign-born, and the dining scene in many boroughs is shaped by immigrant owners. The Times piece concerns South Africa, not New York, but the question it raises is not confined to one country: who gets credit for the food a city eats.