Owens said: "The GF&WS is so much fun! I loved my first visit earlier this year and am delighted to be coming to Durban - I've heard all about the mix of food and cultures as well as KZN hospitality and cannot wait to be coming to the city. I've been practising shisa nyama, chakalaka and pap since my visit to Joburg. Now I want to experience an authentic Durban curry. I also look forward to meeting the legendary Rick Stein."
Rick Stein is an acclaimed chef, restaurateur, cookery book author and television presenter who has written more than 20 cookery books, an autobiography and made more than 30 television programmes. He has also cooked for The Queen and Prince Philip, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and French President, Jacques Chirac.
He is best known for a love of fresh seafood and made his name in the 90s with his earliest books and television series based on his life as chef and owner of The Seafood Restaurant in the fishing port of Padstow on the North Coast of Cornwall. As he said at the time: "Nothing is more exhilarating than fresh fish simply cooked."
Stein is the owner of nine restaurants in the UK, among them the award-winning Seafood Restaurant, St Petroc's Bistro, Stein's Fish & Chips and Rick Stein Fistral in Newquay. A tenth establishment - Rick Stein, Sandbanks - is set to open in Dorset later this year. He also runs a restaurant located at the prestigious Bannisters spa and hotel in New South Wales, Australia.
Stein has written numerous cookery books inspired by his travels, the most recent of which is Rick Stein from Venice to Istanbul which will be released in South Africa in September. Some of his other best-sellers include: Rick Stein Fish & Shellfish, Rick Stein's India, Rick Stein's Spain, My Kitchen Table: 100 Fish and Seafood Recipes, Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey, Rick Stein's Coast to Coast, Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes and Rick Stein's French Odyssey. His autobiography, Under a Mackerel Sky, was released in 2013 and became an instant best-seller worldwide.
Stein has been the recipient of multiple awards, among them the National Restaurant Awards Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, the Food Writers Guild Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, the AA Centenary Awards, AA Lifetime Achievement winner for 2008-2009, the 2007 Le Cordon Bleu World Media Awards - Honoured for outstanding achievements in the industry and inducted into the Tasting Australia International Hall of Fame.
Brenty - as his fellow contestants called him - stole the hearts of millions around the globe when he won the sixth season of MasterChef Australia and became a firm favourite thanks to his unassuming and down-to-Earth approach. His book Dig In reflects his personal philosophy of cooking - "to build your own take on something traditional". Owens admits that he didn't really take to cooking until he was in his late teens: "You really don't know what your passion is when you are 18 or 19. I didn't realise food was my passion until I started watching food shows."
Jenny Morris - aka the Giggling Gourmet - is one of SA's most-loved food personalities. She is an author, magazine writer, radio and TV presenter, celebrity chef, teacher, caterer and culinary tour guide who has had an ongoing love affair with food since she was a child. Not only has she conquered radio, but Jenny has made several television appearances both locally and internationally. Her first show for the Food Network was Jenny Morris Cooks Morocco. It was the first occasion that a South African chef fronted their own show on the channel.
