Pete goffe-wood biography

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Peter has had a hand in the development of some of the Cape’s busiest restaurants including Blues, 95 Keerom Str, Balducci’s & Salt as well as consulting for an international hotel group in Zimbabwe. A lifelong learner, Frank is reading for his doctorate in financial planning at Kansas State University.

In 1992, Frank was homeless, broke and unemployed.

Frank’s first business was selling fruit and vegetables in Johannesburg CBD.

Through this business Frank “beat the odds” and “escaped” homelessness. He launched the Kitchen Cowboys cooking workshops in 2003 in Cape Town.

Peter was food editor for GQ magazine for eight years and has made freelance contributions to Food & Home magazine, Hospitality and Gourmet Traveller. He featured alongside Ainsley Harriot on BBC Food’s Off the Menu, was on SABC 2’s Ready Steady Cook and has regularly appeared on Expresso, Top Billing and Pasella.

He has been judge on MasterChef SA on Mnet for the past four seasons and his comedy show at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown together with comedian, Chris Forrest called “Don’t Burn You’re Sausage” was a great hit!

His hard work payed off and he soon found himself with responsibilities at the Sunday buffet, where among other duties, he had to ensure that the lamb was cooked and carved to perfection.

When his first mentor moved on, the highly creative and eccentric Richard Carstens took over and made the young Reuben his sous chef. In these roles, Frank consistently applied his talent for motivating people, improving employee engagement and building teams.

A pitstop in his life journey saw Frank completing the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School during 2013.

Pete Goffe-Wood has also cooked for South African embassies and other clients in Paris, Budapest, Stuttgart, Istanbul, Zagreb, Moscow & London. His grandmother, mother and aunts would spend hours preparing feasts, always using the freshest fruit and vegetables grown by his grandfather on a small piece of land in the fertile valley of Groendal, Franschhoek.

While the women were toiling away, with a young Reuben stealing his first secrets, many of which can be found in his cooking today.

After a brief stint in the building trade, Reuben swopped trowels for tea towels and joined the waiting staff at Chamonix.

Returning to SA Pete Goffe-Wood helped open the La Couronne Hotel & Winery, now known Mont Rochelle, in Franschhoek – which was named as one of the 50 most exciting restaurants in the world by Conde Nast Traveller.

Peter then embarked on his own venture – PGW Eat in 2001. stepped up to the plate and the compliments started from the tables. UK-born Master Chef Judge Pete grew up in South Africa and has been a professional chef for the past 35 years.

Classically trained he has worked in London with the capital’s top chefs in some of the West End’s award winning restaurants.

Reuben seems unaffected by the limelight preferring to create fine yet unpretentious cuisine that evokes memories of the early days growing up in Groendal.