00:00Ten years ago, Seflaki Masinia slept under this bridge.
00:04Today, he's a national TV reality show winner and a patisserie lecturer.
00:10I catered for stars like Adele, Drake, One Direction, Justin Bieber, Coldplay.
00:17Yeah, so it was really, really mind-blowing.
00:19So these are people that I grew up watching on Channel O and Trace and MTV,
00:24and now these people are actually consuming my dessert.
00:27The young pastry chef, who dreams of having his own dessert bar,
00:31knows how to turn rock bottom into a recipe for success.
00:35Because before the chef's coat, Lucky's life was anything but sweet.
00:41I never thought I'd be there for so long.
00:44So when I say five years, I always think about the winters in the streets.
00:48That was the worst.
00:49You know, there's people that I stayed within the streets that will go to bed
00:52and some of them won't even wake up because it was that cold.
00:54Yes, it was hard.
00:56Yes, there's times where I was even smoking glue, the glue that used for issues.
01:01When we're at a parking lot in the mall, this is very bad.
01:04We used to go to the parking lot, open the cars, and we'd put cloths and move the cars
01:08so we can start sniffing petrol because that keeps you warm when you sleep,
01:11when you're high on that.
01:12And I feel like I went through the journey for a reason.
01:15I feel like if I didn't go through that, I wasn't going to appreciate everything that I have today.
01:19In 2025, Lucky won Tastemaster South Africa season six, taking home 200,000 rands and national recognition.
01:28But the real prize? A new sense of self-worth.
01:32Winning the Tastemaster SA was literally a launchpad for my career.
01:36It's changed my career and my life upside down in a really positive way.
01:42I mean, doors of opportunity are flooding.
01:44Before his TV show win, things changed when a local church helped him off the streets and back to school.
01:50From there, he earned a scholarship to study patisserie and refined his skills in some of London's top kitchens.
01:57And eventually returned home to teach the next generation.
02:01When I was there, I got an opportunity to work at the Ritz Hotel of London,
02:07which is one of the best hotels in the world.
02:09I also met a really good chef called Chef Claire Clark.
02:13She runs Pretty Sweet London.
02:14So they do really big events.
02:16They do like Wimbledon.
02:17And when I was there, they were busy doing mise en place in prep for the Brits Award.
02:23So that was just like a really life changer for me.
02:28After a long journey from the streets to the kitchen,
02:31Lucky is committed to giving young people the opportunity to develop their skills
02:36and build sustainable careers in the culinary world.
02:39So what's this type of dough? Is it a bark fermented dough?
02:44Is it a single fermented dough? Is it an enriched dough?
02:49Enrich. Why do we say it's an enriched dough?
02:51Red eggs.
02:52Red eggs and butter.
02:55His passion shows how he works, how he talks.
02:58And the things that he does is outcomes are really always great.
03:01And he has a lot of knowledge and that's something that we get from him a lot.
03:06He's very wise. So that's why I do look up to him.
03:09And it's very motivating to have a lecture like that.
03:12Definitely the biggest takeaways I've taken from Chef Lucky
03:16is the amount of precision that we need.
03:19Just as a patisserie, we're working with very delicate ingredients
03:24and the products have to be precise.
03:26And then another thing it does teach us is to show off all the time.
03:30So whatever you're doing, wherever you are, just show off your talent,
03:33show off how you work, show off your skills.
03:36Lucky's next chapter, opening Johannesburg's first dessert bar.
03:42A bold move to redefine South Africa's sweet culture.
03:46So I was inspired by a pastry chef called Janice Wong.
03:51She's based in Singapore and New York.
03:54She has what she called a dessert bar.
03:56We have a lot of restaurants.
03:59Also, I feel like we can have a lot of dessert bars.
04:03So looking at the food, there should be a theme.
04:04Is it inviting?
04:06Is it overwhelming?
04:07Is this a warm dessert?
04:08Is this a cold dessert?
04:09So those are things that really excite me.
04:11So because before I even put the dessert together,
04:14there's a lot of thought process that has gone into it.
04:16So it's something that's new, something that's trendy at the moment.
04:21For young chefs dreaming big, Lucky has some advice.
04:24When you work with patisserie or desserts,
04:26you need to be very good with flavour counterbalancing.
04:30So whenever I put something slightly sweet,
04:32I need to make sure that there's some sort of a lemon crema that's going to cut through the sweetness.
04:37I need to make sure that when you're done with the dessert,
04:39your mouth is refreshed.
04:43You're not overwhelmed with the amount of flavour.
04:45So everything comes into place.
04:48From the streets to a reality show winner, Chef Lucky proves that with resilience and passion,
04:54even the sweetest dreams can come true.
05:00Aquaman, yes ever you do,
05:01tropical weather.
05:02Going back home a better day to someone.
05:04You know, here's the holiday behiltered Change paddleboard for wheat.
05:05This is about 15 years ago,
05:08a paradox.
05:12It seems like your spirit wants to make sure everything Cox 60% diye problems have changed.
05:15So it's quite a lot of extraordinarily normal and young people.
05:16So there are many people with recipes who live together
05:18and they're deeply beloved in its customary way.
05:21So I'm overwhelmed with theitu.
05:23And I'm overwhelmed with what thisbodering is.
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