Chef Mokgadi Itsweng’s culinary journey was one driven by passion, health and a love for storytelling through food. Before entering the culinary world, she worked in media and advertising, but her heart kept pulling her into the kitchen. She then trained in New York in the early 2000s, returned to South Africa, and became one of Woolworths’ first chefs.
From there, she built a career as a private chef, caterer and award-winning food writer, contributing to a number of South African magazines. But her biggest shift came when her body started rejecting the very foods she worked with daily. Battling allergic reactions, she turned to a plant-based diet - and it transformed her health.
That personal revelation became her mission, and when she finally wrote her cookbook, Veggielicious, she knew…
