Lesego Semenya

Education

Lesego Semenya enrolled at the Prue Leith Chef's Academy in Centurion, from where he qualified with a Grande Diploma in Food and Wine and five other international diplomas in wine and patisserie.^[1]

Career

Whilst still working as a process engineer for The IQ Business Group he decided to pursue his personal passion and goals.

He began writing articles for a youth magazine called UnCut, the flagship magazine for an organisation called LoveLife. He left the corporate world in 2008 after 6 years to pursue his business goals. Lesego then went on to travel South Africa for a year before enrolling at South Africa’s best chef school.

Lesego Semenya went on to work as a personal chef for a renowned family in Irene, catered to Howard Buffett (Warren Buffett's son) annually and catered to The British High Commission, as well as Liverpool FC.

Semenya also catered to numerous South African celebrities as well as renowned international celebrities.^[1] Until May 2014 Lesego worked at Richard Branson's private game reserve in the Sabi Sands before returning to his native city to begin focusing on building his business. He writes and talks about food regularly and tweets passionately about food as part of his mission to educate as many South Africans as possible about food and the culinary industry.?

Lesego was the official ambassador of the DStv Foodies campaign (2015), the face and co-collaborator for Singleton’s “Made with Taste” campaign (2016), a Top Chef South Africa judge (2016), an influencer for numerous whisky and food brands, a collaborator with UberEATS (2016/2017), the chief creator, food ambassador and influencer for SABMiller’s beer Carver’s Weiss and Power FM’s resident chef.^[2]

Business

• LesDaChef Culinary Solutions Pty Ltd which was officially registered as a company in February 2015. (Reg. 2015/141605/07).^[2]

Death

He died in July 2021. The cause of his death was not revealed but Semenya had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

He documented and shared about his journey with the virus on his social media platforms. In the first tweet he shared about his diagnosis, Semenya commented about how he had followed all preventative protocols diligently, but still caught the virus.^[3] He had revealed that he was living with comorbidity, which made his fight against the virus more difficult.

His last update on his recovery posted on Twitter was a record of day five, on which he told his followers that he was taking loads of medication and thanked everyone for the support he had received since testing positive.^[4]

Books

• Dijo: My Food, My Journey (2018)^[2]

Awards

In 2010 he took part in a World Cup pie designing competition run by the British High Commission where his pie, based on a township Kota, won and was named the Official pie of the visiting British football fans for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The prize included working in a Michelin Star rated restaurant in London owned by Richard Corrigan.^[2]

References