Sibahle ‘Siba’ Mtongana
Tribute
Sibahle 'Siba' Mtongana creates South African culinary masterpieces while seasoning her four children's lives with love, tradition, and joy alongside her husband Brian. Beyond her celebrity chef status, we honour the family recipes that will never appear in cookbooks, the nutritional knowledge she had applied to both restaurant menus and lunchboxes, and the food personality who knows her most important guests will always be the ones who call her kitchen home.
Profile
Sibahle ‘Siba’ Mtongana is a renowned chef, author, and television personality, celebrated for her innovative approach to traditional African cuisine. She holds a degree in Food and Consumer Sciences, with majors in Food Science and Nutrition. She gained international acclaim as the host of ‘Siba’s Table’ on the Food Network, where she showcased contemporary South African dishes to a global audience across 135 countries, including 60 million homes in the USA. Her dynamic presence and culinary expertise have earned her multiple awards, including five US Film and Television Awards and four local awards. Siba’s entrepreneurial spirit led to the launch of Siba The Restaurant at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town and The Siba Co, a food solutions and innovation holdings company. That same year, she was selected to curate the VIP menu for the inauguration of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, serving 450 distinguished guests, including international dignitaries. Her best-selling cookbook, ‘My Table,’ published in 2015, won two prestigious awards at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in China in 2017, marking her as the first South African to receive the Special Award of the Jury for the book’s cultural impact. Siba is married to Brian Mtongana and together they have four children.