South Africa's most promising chef

DW (English)

The South African’s dishes involve a good combination of taste, skills and dedication. His training in French cuisine has allowed him to showcase his full talent and gain recognition in the culinary industry.

Transcript

00:00 The journey of this award-winning culinary high-flyer is as interesting as the dishes

00:07 he cooks up.

00:08 How did chef Moses Molloy grow to become one of South Africa's most promising chefs?

00:15 There's this adrenaline rush that you get when we are pumping food out and everyone's

00:20 like energy is all up.

00:21 So I don't think there's many places that you can get that type of adrenaline rush.

00:27 And it's just an amazing space once the kitchen is pumping and we're pushing food out.

00:32 I love it.

00:33 I love it.

00:34 I don't want it to ever end, you know?

00:36 Trained in French cuisine and having dabbled in a number of global gastronomies, chef Moses

00:41 Molloy is now serving up a Mexican-Peruvian inspired menu.

00:47 He's the head chef here at one of Johannesburg's top food destinations, Zoo Restaurant.

00:54 So I studied French cuisine primarily because it's the foundation of many cuisines in the

00:58 world and a lot of my chefs that inspired me have been trained through the French cuisine.

01:05 Different continents, we take from the French cuisine, you know?

01:08 It's a mother of it all.

01:11 When I came to Johannesburg, we sat down with the owners and we chose a specific cuisine.

01:18 Celebrity chef and restaurateur David Higgs has added Zoo to his impressive restaurant

01:24 portfolio.

01:25 One of the first things we thought about was going a little bit Asian because that seems

01:32 to be the trend nowadays.

01:33 Anything Asian, anything sushi works.

01:36 But then what happened was that every second restaurant was now Asian inspired and we just

01:40 thought let's take a different angle.

01:43 And something that's been done at a higher level is the whole Mexican sort of Peruvian

01:48 vibe.

01:49 There's a lot of it going on but a lot of it is infused with different menus.

01:54 So we thought we'd take a direct angle with this.

01:56 And it really is the flavors of what people in South Africa enjoy.

01:59 It's slightly spicy, there's beautiful sweetness that comes through from fruit and vegetables

02:04 and then obviously the whole raw fish which again takes from that Asian angle.

02:10 But remember that Peruvian food is largely inspired and massively inspired by Japan because

02:16 they cross the waters from each other.

02:18 So there is similarities.

02:23 Despite the influence from other global cuisines, the South African element still shines through.

02:31 Mexican tacos, you know.

02:32 We use that, we use our local produce here.

02:36 We make a nice salsa and we take our local lamb here and we put it together with a beautiful

02:40 herb guacamole.

02:41 You know what I mean?

02:42 The fusion of that.

02:43 But the lamb itself, we cook it in a South African way.

02:47 And taking the actual taco and the Mexican way of making tacos, the Morita salsas and

02:51 all that, we put it together to come up with some of our dishes or many of our dishes.

02:58 A lot of people think we are but we're not fine dining.

03:01 Fine dining is just the, look, just the finer details in a lot of stuff, you know.

03:05 My foundation and background is on fine dining.

03:07 So I do try to do certain things in a finer way.

03:11 So maybe that's where people have this perception that we are fine dining.

03:17 We're meant to be fine dining if there's such, you know what I mean?

03:22 Because there's certain elements of our dishes that are like on the finer edge of things

03:25 and then the others are like, look at the dishes, we wouldn't say it's a fine dining

03:28 plate, you know.

03:29 It's quite rustic and not too neat.

03:36 Cooking in the restaurant kitchen is busy work.

03:38 Chef Moses has taken to cycling for fitness and to boost creativity.

03:45 When I'm riding my bike, I can think clearly and thoroughly about certain dishes and recipes

03:51 and how we can improve the restaurant.

03:54 Also like the amount of steps that we get to into the kitchen, it's quite a lot.

03:59 So with being fit and healthy, you just can literally be easy, you know, in such a way

04:05 that you're not that tired like many of the other guys that are slightly not fit.

04:13 The award-winning chef attributes his love for cooking to his grandmother.

04:19 My grandmother taught me a lot of tricks that still today that I use.

04:23 I mean, I won a competition in the United States with the method of cooking the dombole,

04:28 which is also known as dumplings/steamed bread in a plastic, you know, you use a shop-bought

04:34 plastic bag.

04:35 So the people there were like shocked as to see me using a shopping bag to steam the bread

04:41 in that.

04:42 Chef Moses has long since traded in the plastic bag for a chef's knife and knows exactly how

04:48 to prepare a cutting-edge menu.

04:52 One day I have dreams and aspirations to open my own restaurant where I can dive into like

04:57 different corners of South Africa.

04:59 I feel like as a country, we have so much more to offer and I want to dive into that.

05:05 This is where home is.

05:06 South Africa has so much more.

05:08 With grand plans ahead, Chef Moses Molloy is definitely one to follow.

05:14 (upbeat music)

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