CHEF JESS VAN DYK a true culinary star

Chef Jess van Dyk

The ascension of a true culinary star. BY THEA BECKMAN

Many childhoods are coloured with the memory of food; fi ercely guarded recipes handed from generation to generation, mom’s macaroni and cheese (which made

Mondays feel like birthdays), and rambunctious family gatherings around tables groaning with festive fare. But Jess van Dyk’s childhood takes fragrant memories of food to a di erent level. Forget Power

Rangers and Pokémon: Jess’ heroes were BBC Food chefs like Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein and Gary

Rhodes. Is it any surprise then that this country girl from the Northern Cape would go on to become head chef at La Colombe in Constantia, one of the country’s, continent’s, and world’s best restaurants?

And then to start her very own fi ne dining restaurant in the beating heart of Stellenbosch in the Cape

Winelands? The answer is most defi nitively no!

OLYMPIC TRAINING, COME FULL CIRCLE

Despite her family’s concerns about the brutally demanding nature of high-end kitchens, Jess threw herself into an education at the prestigious Silwood School of Cookery in Cape Town. And where did she decide to complete her fi rst internship? None other than South Africa’s Mount Olympus of fi ne dining: La Colombe, where she completed her third year Grande Diploma under the watchful tutelage of executive chef Scot Kirton before climbing the ranks to sous chef.

After four years, Jess bid farewell to La Colombe to pursue fresh culinary learning curves, which would include recipe development, food styling, food photography and videography with Source Food and Concepts, as well as working as a private chef on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean. Eleven months and a tan later, Jess returned to South Africa to take her rightful place, once again, coming full circle, at the helm of La Colombe… but this time, as head chef.

FROM WAKING NIGHTMARE TO DREAM

Chef Jess van Dyk headed La Colombe’s kitchen for two years when, in 2019, she made the move to the casual fi ne-dining eatery, Protégé in Franschhoek. Mere months later, COVID-19 struck, bringing South Africa’s restaurant industry to its knees. Yet, in the midst of the struggle to keep restaurants open, Jess – like so many of us – took stock of her life and, from the waking nightmare that was the global pandemic, began to manifest her dream to open her own restaurant. Three months later, Jess signed a lease on Stellenbosch’s Old Post O ce on the corner of Bird and Plein streets, and with restaurant manager Dimitri Hadzigrigoriou by her side, Post & Pepper was conceived.

Jess o cially opened her restaurant’s doors in February of this year, a fi ne-dining eatery without the starch, sti upper lip, or startling price tags. ‘Fun-dining’. The menu here o ers diners a seasonal, everchanging smorgasbord that pleases the scepticism out of regulars while still o ering a worthy challenge to the chefs in the kitchen. (This makes perfect sense when you consider that chasing challenges has become somewhat of a hallmark of her career.) Refi ned but casual, Post & Pepper delivers a food experience that strikes a delectable balance between comfortable elegance and creative familiar favourites.

A STAR ASCENDED

From the steamy, fragrant kitchens of her childhood to having total creative freedom over her beautiful restaurant, it’s clear that Jess van Dyk is more than just one of South Africa’s hottest rising chefs. She has already arisen, broken the horizon and assumed her rightful place among the stars, and the light of her arrival is truly dazzling.