Dewet van Westhuizen: runaway chef

He's survived irate elephants, presidential security guards and even chopped salads. The Cellar's Dewet van Westhuizen tells Andy van Smeerdijk how running away from home led him on a culinary journey.

When Dewet van Westhuizen began his career as a chef, he wasn't fulfilling a life-long dream. He just wanted to feed himself.

But put the handkerchief away, this isn't a tale of poverty. The fact is that Dewet, executive chef at The Cellar, was a bit of a rogue when he was a teenager in South Africa.

"It wasn't a career choice, if I could put it that way. Basically, I was 14 and a bit of a naughty boy. I left home, ran away then after a month or two I realised that I needed money to survive.

"No one was going to employ someone my age so what happened was Sun International was having strikes, and so that was how I got a job with the Wild Coast Sun as a trainee chef.

"I worked there for a few months then the executive chef told me he wanted to take me on permanently. They started asking for my ID so eventually I had to tell them that I was underage. But he knew another chef who ran training programmes for chefs and he set me up to go to Karos, another hotel and training group."

After three years of training and a year's internship, Dewet's work has taken him to the far reaches of the world. He's helped launch casinos and hotels, prepared banquets for heads of state, catered for groups of 5000 and even worked in safari lodges.

In all, his cooking has delighted diners in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Miami, Saudi Arabia and now Dubai's Aviation Club, where he's been based for three years.

Yet as a child, he was more interested in eating than cooking. "I liked food," says Dewet, 31. "But coming from the family I came from, who were all lawyers, I never thought I'd land up as a chef. I don't think it ever entered my mind for a second. But now I love it."

The journey's been more than a culinary one, it's exposed him to a range of cultures and some amazing experiences. When he worked at the Mövenpick in Dar Es Salaam, the hotel often hosted foreign dignitaries.

And when there was a meeting of the African Union in session there could be several heads of state staying at once.

"It would sometimes take me about 20 minutes to get back to my own room. Every president had loads of security, so when you walked past their room in the corridor, each one of them would want to stop you and search you! I'd get past one room, then the next president's guys would frisk me too."

Aside from diplomatic encounters, he's had a few brushes with wildlife while on the job too; the first being at Singita Lebombo, a luxury safari lodge adjacent to the Kruger National Park, where he was acting head chef.

"That was a very crazy place. I'm actually scared of wildlife... I like wildlife but when I worked there I realised how dangerous animals are. The animals walk through the whole place. So if you need go to your room at night, a ranger escorts you to your room in a Land Rover.

"But one day I didn't have a ranger so I drove myself and I ran into an elephant. I've never been so scared in my life. So I parked in the middle of the road and sat there. Then the elephant started performing; flapping its ears... it looked irritated so I was starting to really freak out. The next minute, there was a whole load of elephants on the both sides of the road. Basically, they'd been crossing the road and I'd gotten in between them."

Later, he helped open the Royal Livingstone in Zambia, a luxury hotel overlooking the Victoria Falls that is also surrounded by wildlife.

"One night we were driving home from town and there were a couple of hippos on the road. An English guy I was with dared me to slap the hippo on its arse, so I did it - then we raced off. That was one of the stupidest things I've done!"

His stint in Miami provided a fascinating insight into American culture, but not much of a culinary experience. "The food was disappointing because they weren't too adventurous with new things," he says.

"But I learnt some things though... like chopped salad - never seen so much in my life and hopefully I'll never see it again. Basically you choose any salad imaginable and you chop it up into the smallest pieces so you don't have to chew it. You might as well stick it in a blender!"

In South Africa, Dewet took part in the opening of Caesar's Palace in Johannesburg, where he organised banquets for thousands, and also worked at The Palace, Sun City.

Despite the blingy resume, his most formative experience was at a small deluxe hotel outside Johannesburg.

"The one place where I actually found out who I am, as my own chef was a place called Toadberry. I went to this place to enquire about having my wedding there. It had just opened. And while I was sitting with this lady and speaking to her, I actually started teaching her about the industry. They phoned two days later and asked me if I could run it for them." (The wedding in question never eventuated.)

"That's where I found myself. I was importing stuff from all over the world; there was no budget for food costs and I got to experiment with a lot of things."

Through trial and error, he learnt that simplicity was key, not overly-decorative dishes. "You don't need a lot of garnish. The food should garnish the plate - the food you present, the clarity of the sauces, with everything just right, is attractive enough. That's where my love started for what I really like as food."

Dewet defines his cuisine in one word: comfortable. "I can do nouvelle cuisine if I want, but I think that people want food that's comfortable. I find that essentially most people want food that tastes good and is not overworked. I've always had good results and feedback from just making proper food; not too complicated."

Today his culinary journey is nowhere near its end. Married with a daughter, visiting his Lithuanian wife's homeland has exposed him to another unique cuisine.

"My mother-in-law's cooking at home is beautiful, nicely cooked food. The sort you could open a restaurant with and call it 'home cooking'. The flavours are there and a lot of culture too; there's Russian influence.

"The food there has very little exposure overseas... but if you go to there or Russia or Hungary, you'll find amazing cuisine. In fact, it's a little known fact that some French dishes were actually stolen from Hungary."

In fact, until recently one of his mother-in-law's recipes, chilled beetroot and yoghurt soup, featured on The Cellar's menu.

The restaurant's wine and food nights are a means for him to explore different cuisines, such as American, Italian, Spanish and Australian. Dewet enjoys the challenge of researching menus, but was stumped when it came to the New Zealand night.

"Then this New Zealander told me about something his dad used to make when they were out fishing... it's a bit like sushi. So I came up with something similar - some salmon, scorpion fish with onions, capers, sugar, salt and wasabi. It worked well."

Seventeen years since running away from home, ironically it's the home-style experience he tries to recreate.

"I want to make it the best experience you've ever had in your life. Like a meal made by your wife or your grandmother - sitting around having lunch on a Sunday afternoon with your whole family. That's what people remember, it's an experience you can never take away from somebody and that's what we as chefs need to strive for."