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The SWEET life<br />
Diepsloot's Tichaona Phillimon Mugwambani has come a long way in his culinary career.<br />
He chats about his dream job and humble beginnings in Zimbabwe.<br />
Text & main image: JACO-MARI HAASBROEK. Food images: RIALIEN FURSTENBERG.<br />
His love for all things<br />
sweet started at a<br />
young age as he<br />
grew up with a<br />
mother who baked<br />
and decorated<br />
cakes and made<br />
desserts almost<br />
daily. Now he is a qualified pâtissier at<br />
Dolci Café – a quaint traditional Italian<br />
restaurant in the city.<br />
'I've always had a sweet tooth and<br />
even before I went to school, I knew<br />
I wanted to create immaculate desserts<br />
because it was a prominent part<br />
of my childhood. One of my most<br />
memorable experiences as a child was<br />
eating my mother's amazing red<br />
velvet cheesecake.'<br />
When we say he had humble<br />
beginnings, we mean it. After high<br />
school, he worked for a construction<br />
company for about a year. When<br />
he moved from Zimbabwe to<br />
Johannesburg, he started as a sculleryhand<br />
in a hotel in Fourways and<br />
never thought that he would one day<br />
become a pastry chef ...<br />
'I was just a scullery-hand but showed<br />
great interest in food, especially<br />
desserts, and I started to help out<br />
in the kitchen after I'd washed all<br />
the dishes. I was later promoted to<br />
assistant baker. All my dreams were<br />
starting to come true.'<br />
After three years as an assistant baker,<br />
he joined Dolci Café. He has been<br />
part of their team of brilliant chefs for<br />
the last two years while completing a<br />
diploma in patisserie at the HTA School<br />
of Culinary Art.<br />
'Working with cakes, pastries, and<br />
desserts is the best part of my job<br />
because I get to play around and<br />
create something new that tastes<br />
wonderful. I can work on my own and<br />
experiment until I have perfected a<br />
new recipe. A lot of the special desserts<br />
on the menu are my own creations.'<br />
24 Get It Joburg <strong>West</strong> DEC/JAN <strong>2019</strong> - <strong>2020</strong><br />
Short & sweet:<br />
Your favourite cuisine ... Italian - I love pasta!<br />
The secret to being a successful pastry chef ... patience, loads of it.<br />
Team player or lone wolf ... I’m definitely a team player.<br />
Your favourite dessert ... cream horns.<br />
Your friends would describe you as ... always happy.<br />
Your favourite ingredient to work with ... icing sugar.
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