Siba Mtongana has collected international awards and accolades over the years, but this week marks a particularly meaningful milestone for her: the opening of the deli she has dreamed of for nearly a decade.
Siba Deli Foodshop + Eatery in Gardens was originally meant to be her first foray into a more casual restaurant space. When the pandemic shifted the industry’s landscape, she headed into fine dining through SIBA The Restaurant at The Table Bay Hotel, which allowed her to craft elevated, immersive culinary experiences. When the hotel closed for renovations earlier this year, she returned to her original dream – a deli, an everyday space that reflects how people want to eat today. It opened this week.
An acclaimed food scientist and chef, Siba boasts an extensive portfolio. In her early career, she served five years as food editor at Drum Magazine while debuting her first cooking show, Cooking with Siba, in 2011. In 2013, she became a household name for her second cooking show, Siba’s Table, which airs on the Food Network and has been broadcast to more than 130 countries. Notably, the show earned the chef a SAFTA in its second season. Siba has not only been described as South Africa’s first global celebrity chef, but she also became the first chef in Africa to become a Harvard Business School case study. The study noted how Mtongana approaches cooking intuitively, a skill she learnt from her mother and grandmother and one she now brings to the deli.
For years, she has been asked to bring her homestyle favourites into an accessible, everyday format. “People are busy, and they want great food without the fuss,” Mtongana says. Siba Deli Foodshop + Eatery becomes a space built around convenience, created to give people back one of life’s most precious commodities: time. Not to mention the growing range of Siba-branded products that will also be available throughout the eatery.
Where her TV work was about inspiration and her restaurant about full immersion, the deli lands neatly between the two. It feels warm, familiar and inclusive, reflecting how people live: curious, time-starved and unwilling to trade convenience for flavour.
It’s positioned as an everyday neighbourhood stop-in, whether for a quick bite, home meals or a Siba delivery order. If she had to describe it in three words: accessible, elevated and heartfelt.
In the Longkloof Precinct in Park Road, the deli could easily pass for a charming corner eatery in London’s Notting Hill, with a slightly whimsical air. But its soul is African. Mtongana’s culinary DNA runs through the menu — from velvety coconut maize meal porridge and a hearty bean stew with a contemporary twist to Siba’s Famous Chakalaka & Egg on Toast, a dish she holds especially dear. “Chakalaka is a staple in so many of our households,” she says. “I wanted it to feel fresh and delicious but still proudly South African.”
Mtongana sees this new direction as a natural evolution and growth of her brand. The restaurant, she says, isn’t gone forever; it’s simply paused while they focus on what people are asking for right now. The plan is to relaunch Siba The Restaurant in the near future, in a new location but “for now, the deli has our full attention”.
