Since I rubbed shoulders with these up-and-coming food legends, I can tell you a few things about them. MasterChef South Africa Season 4 aired in February and March 2022.

Where can I watch MasterChef South Africa season 4?

MasterChef South Africa Season premiered onon 28 February 2022 on M-Net (DStv channel 101).
Unfortunately there are currently no streaming platforms that still broadcast this season.

Justine Drake (@justinedrakecooks) needs no introduction in the food world. She has been in the food media industry since 1988 (a year after I was born! But I won’t remind Justine of that). She was the first editor of Pick n Pay’s Fresh Living magazine and she has worked at magazines like Fair Lady and Men’s Health. She is currently the content director at Dentsu Creative.

Zola Nene (@zola_nene) started her culinary journey at the Institute of Culinary Arts (ICA) in Stellenbosch and was known for appearing on the Expresso Show (read my blog post on what it was like for me, to cook live on the Expresso show) and she appeared alongside Gordon Ramsay on National Geographic’s ‘Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” and on “The Great South African Bake Off”. She is also a cook book author and published three cook books. Her second book Simply Zola was awarded the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2019. Her latest book Simply Seven Colours (first published in 2022), celebrates South Africa’s rich food traditions, something that also came through in the Seven Colours episode on MasterChef season 4!

Gregory Czarnecki (@czarneckigregory) was born in France and trained as a chef in his motherland. He worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris including Restaurant Senderens (with mentor and three-star Michelin chef Alain Senderens), Lucas Carton and Pergolése. He opened two restaurants in Brussesl named Genéve and Lyon. Greg has lived in South Africa for over a decade now. As head chef at the restaurant at Waterkloof in Somerset West from 2009 to 2020, he won the Chef of the Year award in 2016 and the restaurant was named Restaurant of the Year in 2018. Sadly Waterkloof closed its doors in 2020. After being judge on MasterChef South Africa season 4, Greg became the head chef at the Cape Grace Hotel.

I got to know Alicia as an incredibly sweet, passionate foodie. She creates some of the best instagram content I’ve seen - check her out on What’s Alicia Cooking. I admired her extensive food knowledge the most in the competition. Most of her food is modern Mediterranean, drawing into her heritage.

Andriette De la Harpe

Andriette is ever present! She has so much personality, it bubbles over. She has the loudest voice in the room, and brings a lot of joy and positivity. She is incredibly loving and friendly. Whilst I always saw confectionary as my weakness at MasterChef, this is without a doubt one of Andriette’s strengths. She is the queen of cakes and if you’re looking for a beautiful, delicious tasting celebration cake, you don’t have to look further than Mond Vol!

Where is Andriette now?

Andriette now runs a bakery called Mondvol. She started out selling cakes (Baard and Co. even stocked them! Now she sells cookies too, they are delicious! Crunchy on the outside, and gooey on the inside.

Charmaine Govender-Koen

Charmaine has an incubator-style food stand at Makers Landing, and if you happen to be around, you absolutely have to try her butter chicken! She sells her dishes both fresh and frozen, so you are spoilt for choice. I recently bought some of Charms’ kitchen masala mix and it’s a perfect base for a brilliant curry. You can follow Charm’s Kitchen on Instagram as well. During the competition, Charms and I bonded over the fact that we both had to leave our children behind. Charms’ daughter is similar in age to mine. It sure wasn’t easy leaving our families behind whilst in the Covid bubble on set!

Dedre ‘Didi’ Stols

Another lady on the team that I had some solid conversations with during our time in the competition. Didi used to work on the ships until Covid made ‘ship life’ between challenging and non-existant. Her adventurous spirit and high energy matches this well , however she is also an incredible cook with loads of talent. Follow her on happididi!

James Ovendale

I have seen James wear the funkiest outfits this world can find - I love that he is very comfortable to stand out! The world (and this competition would be a gloomier place without James) and I think he’s a real treat for TV! No wonder M-Net described him as “this season’s lovable wild child”! Yet make no mistake, James is also a true master in the kitchen and at making ice cream. He attended culinary classes at Silwood Culinary School and his cooking is South African-inspired.

Lisa Kayster

Lisa is incredibly sweet and gentle. I have loved getting to know more about her and her family. Lisa was very open about her history and where she grew up. Throughout the competition, Lisa loved using statistics to predict the outcome of the challenges.

Luyanda Mafanya

This Queen of Social needs no introduction - she is already famous! With 120k followers on her ’Cooking with Luyanda’ Instagram page, she’s a foodie inspiration. Luyanda thrives in social environments and so it should come as no surprise that being a contestant on MasterChef South Africa wasn’t her first appearance on a reality show: she was also a semi-finalist on My Kitchen Rules! In the MasterChef competition, I saw Luyanda was clear headed and focussed.

Masedi Mabe

Masedi definitely became one of my buddies on the show. He is super chilled and very calming. He is an unbelievable person to talk to - so much depth to him.Still waters run deep, the expression goes, and this is definitely true for Masedi. In the competition, Masedi was cool as a cucumber - no challenge seemed to intimidate him. In Johannesburg, Masedi runs burger joint Bun2Belly. 

Matthew Arnott

Matthew is an incredibly talented cook. He is a quiet soul, yet like Masedi has so much depth to him. I got to know him to be very gentle and caring and I have since learned that he took a year off to care for his mother when she contracted Covid-19 - I’m not surprised. Matthew was possibly the most empathetic contestant on the show.

Mohammed Haffejee

Mohammed is a go-getter and very focussed. He is technically very strong in the kitchen. On Instagram, he is known as The Suited Chef and this title suits him well. I've gotten to know him as someone who enjoys the finer things in life and this reflects both in his outfits and his dishes.

Onezwa Mbola

I really connected with Onezwa, and had some really good conversations with her. I don’t think I’m alone in this, as it seemed Onezwa got on with all of the contestants. Being on MasterChef is exhilarating but also exhausting, and Onezwa had the ability to get a great nap in when the rest of us could only (day) dream of that. This sure made me envious!

Ontiretse ‘Onti’ Molloyi

Onti is beautiful, both inside and out. She is well put together, and is very classy in the way she dresses. I can only imagine she is an amazing mother to her two children. Her passion for food is so evident and I’d vote her to be “most likely to be successful in food” if this were a high school yearbook entry. You can follow her journey on her Instagram page ontimolloyi.

Silindokuhle ‘Sli’ Moroke

Sli is the funny man and I can remember some classic comments where he came up with his spot-on one liner jokes. He has a very dry sense of humor, which I appreciate. Particular in the heat of the kitchen, his sense of humor got me through some of the stressful times. Other than that, Sli is also unbelievably empathetic and I connected with him a lot. His Instagram page heartyandhomecooked currently has 14,3k followers and I’m sure that’s about to blow up!

Simphiwe ‘Sims’ Kubeka

Sims is another jovial character and it’s great to have him around as he is always positive in any situation. The world can be falling down around him - he’ll still see the positive. You can follow his journey on its.the.sims! Sims is a natural baker, with a clear understanding on how to deliver technically challenging confectionary dishes.

Sylvie Hurford

Sylvie is the funky mom. She is a very caring and nurturing person and a much loved person in the group. We could always trust Sylvie to ensure there was a positive group dynamic between all of us, despite us being competing against each other. I’m envious of her already having published a cookbook which interestingly is about allergen free cooking for kids. You can check her out on sylvie_hurford.

Tarryn de Kock

Tarryn is a deep soul. She always dresses uniquely and has her own amazing signature style. She’s very close to her mom and sibling and I enjoyed listening to all her stories about growing up in the restaurant industry. She is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to food and fierce competition for me!

Tasnim Jadwat

Tasnim has a great sense of humor, and always made everyone laugh in the kitchen. She is very driven and motivated. Her willingness to be daring and take a risk in the kitchen made her a worthy opponent and I was most impressed with her plating. Since we are not given the opportunity to taste each other’s dishes, we end up gauging each other’s abilities by the way the food looked and her dishes always looked amazing!

Tembisa Jordaan

Tembi is a very intelligent, sweet person.True to South African produce with an appreciation for South African heritage dishes, she was a worthy competitor! Besides cooking against each other, we had some of the deepest conversations about the South African economical and political landscape, particularly around white privilege and the contrasts between different South Africans and the opportunities for each of them. I sincerely appreciate Tembi’s open nature and I think this is what has made her successful in her other pursuit of filmmaking. Tembi has some amazing ideas of how she is going to take her exposure on MasterChef forward to tell stories that were previously untold, and I can’t wait to see her succeed there!

Udhir ‘Dr Harri’ Harrinarain

Dr Harri always has a good story to tell. He is very entertaining and always seeks to have a good time with everyone. His baking skills are next level, check out his goodies on his Instagram page. As a dentist Dr Harri brought an extra dimension to the group and he always had some oral health tips with his fellow MasterChef SA contestants!

Shawn Godfrey

And then there was me, The Roasted Dad.

I sure felt the ‘imposter syndrome’ being surrounded by so many talented individuals, many of whom seemed to know and have experienced so much more than me when it came to cooking. Having said that, I would probably be described by my fellow contestants as the nerdy one. I studied my butt off to fill the gaps that I felt I had. I pushed myself to a whole new level and embraced the experience with all its challenges. At the end of it all, it was about the experience and making the most of it. 

The Judges in MasterChef South Africa Season 4

Justine Drake (@justinedrakecooks) needs no introduction in the food world. She has been in the food media industry since 1988 (a year after I was born! But I won’t remind Justine of that). She was the first editor of Pick n Pay’s Fresh Living magazine and she has worked at magazines like Fair Lady and Men’s Health. She is currently the content director at Dentsu Creative.

Zola Nene (@zola_nene) started her culinary journey at the Institute of Culinary Arts (ICA) in Stellenbosch and was known for appearing on the Expresso Show (read my blog post on what it was like for me, to cook live on the Expresso show) and she appeared alongside Gordon Ramsay on National Geographic’s ‘Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” and on “The Great South African Bake Off”. She is also a cook book author and published three cook books. Her second book Simply Zola was awarded the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2019. Her latest book Simply Seven Colours (first published in 2022), celebrates South Africa’s rich food traditions, something that also came through in the Seven Colours episode on MasterChef season 4!

Gregory Czarnecki (@czarneckigregory) was born in France and trained as a chef in his motherland. He worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris including Restaurant Senderens (with mentor and three-star Michelin chef Alain Senderens), Lucas Carton and Pergolése. He opened two restaurants in Brussesl named Genéve and Lyon. Greg has lived in South Africa for over a decade now. As head chef at the restaurant at Waterkloof in Somerset West from 2009 to 2020, he won the Chef of the Year award in 2016 and the restaurant was named Restaurant of the Year in 2018. Sadly Waterkloof closed its doors in 2020. After being judge on MasterChef South Africa season 4, Greg became the head chef at the Cape Grace Hotel.

About MasterChef Season 4

MasterChef season 4 started airing with the first episode on February 28th 2022. With four episodes a week the story unfolded quickly.

On this blog I have tried to expand on the journey, to give fans of the show some backstage details on what went on behind the scenes of MasterChef South Africa Season 4. 

Subscribe to my newsletter to get news and updates, and of course follow me via Instagram. Winning MasterChef was only the beginning, and the best is yet to come.

About Shawn Godfrey

Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.

Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.

It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.

On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).

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