Born and raised in KwaZulu Natal, Lentswe has always expressed a keen interest in food and dining since his early teens. Lentswe spent five years in the investment finance industry at a business development level gathering invaluable business acumen from companies such as Old Mutual, Allan Gray, The Income Specialist & Wesgro.
In 2010, Lentswe exchanged his suit and tie for a chef jacket when he enrolled at the prestigious The Culinary Academy in the Cape Winelands. He graduated as a professional chef underwritten by City & Guilds. He worked his way up in the food industry by working at fine dining restaurants like the Savoy Cabbage, The Roundhouse, Saucisse Deli and a number of catering companies around Cape Town and Durban.
His business experience and ability to engage well with a crowd encouraged him to start a local film and media production house called Green Zebra Productions. Together with his business partner, they produced South Africa’s first food web series, ‘Africa on a Plate’. Lentswe provided all online food content – weekly recipes, videos and blogs for the site.
Since then, Lentswe has presented a local television cooking show for DSTV’s SowetoTV, called “Kasi Kitchen” sponsored by Spekko, which aired for 6 months from February until July 2014.
In 2014, Green Zebra Production was commissioned to produce a television version of “Africa on a Plate” for a US Network, The Africa Channel. This is a fully commissioned 14-part Travel and Cooking Series, which is currently airing in the US.
Lentswe has appeared several times on SABC3’s Expresso as a guest chef. He is a regular MC and Chef at food festivals, events and expo’s, with his most recent being the host and chef of the “Extreme Nutrition Theatre” at the Good Food and Wine Show in Johannesburg.
On top of all that, Lentswe is the local ambassador of the ‘Chefs who share – Young Chef Award’. The award gives upcoming chefs the opportunity to be recognized as outstanding talents. Lentswe is also a judge for the award – where 75 restaurants across South Africa are invited to nominate participants to create innovative and outstanding canapés. The jury (which includes our food editor, Tessa Purdon) will nominate just seven young chefs out of all entries, who will be invited to cook alongside the 14 kitchen heroes at the ‘Chefs who share’ gala on 10 September 2015.