The evening marks a rare full-service appearance in Cape Town by a chef operating at Majozi's level in London, and the first time she and Jacobs both raised in Durban have worked a pass together.

A Career Built on Precision

Majozi's reputation rests less on a signature style than on a standard. She launched The Pie Room at Holborn Dining Room alongside Calum Franklin before taking over as Head Pie Maker in 2022, running the operation across eleven years at Rosewood London at a rate of more than three hundred pies a day. Pastry is widely regarded as one of the least forgiving disciplines in a professional kitchen, and Majozi built her name on delivering it consistently, at volume, inside a five-star hotel.

She has also taught the craft, running public courses and children's masterclasses in London, and works with Women in Hospitality, an industry body supporting the careers of aspiring female chefs, through networking events and workshops of her own. She currently serves as Chef in Residence at Fallow in St James's, where her brief spans a changing pie offering, pâté en croûte, whole-animal butchery and house-made charcuterie.

A Shared Durban Background, A Coincidental Collaboration

That Majozi and Jacobs both grew up in Durban is, by their own account, incidental to the collaboration rather than its origin. Neither planned it, and this dinner is the first time the two have cooked together.

Cooking From Local Ground

Heirloom sources from a settled network of South African growers, fishermen and oyster farmers, most based in the Western Cape, and the 22 August menu draws on the same suppliers the restaurant uses year-round nothing has been flown in for the occasion. For Majozi, who has spent twenty-four years cooking South African-inflected food in London, where most of her ingredients had to travel to reach her, the contrast is direct.

"Nokx is among the very few South African chefs to have reached this level internationally, in one of the most unforgiving disciplines in the culinary world," says Wesli Jacobs, Executive Chef at Cape Grace.

"A pie is not a rustic thing. It is one of the most technical items you can put in front of a guest, and it either works or it does not," Majozi says. "Twenty-four years in London went into learning that. Bringing it to a Cape Town kitchen, and to young cooks here who might want this career, matters to me more than the dinner does."

The Menu

The evening's menu was developed jointly, tested and refined across oceans rather than assembled by slotting a signature dish into an existing carte. It opens with ujeqe, the steamed bread of KwaZulu-Natal, served alongside corn bread, followed by Saldanha Bay oysters with smoked snoek mayonnaise, chakalaka purée and citrus foam, and then rooibos-cured trout with braised leeks, finger lime, curry leaf and beurre blanc.

The main course is a wagyu beef Wellington, built on techniques Majozi knows intimately, served with morogo braised in garlic, onion and cultured butter, and chargrilled squash. Dessert reimagines milk tart as a mille-feuille. South African wines selected by the Cape Grace sommelier team accompany each course.

A Pie That Outlasts the Evening

Beyond the dinner itself, Majozi has created a pie exclusively for Heirloom, on the menu from 23 August through 23 September. Her pies typically compress a South African filling into British pastry technique, and this one is built to hold up after she leaves — meaning the method must transfer to Jacobs's team before she flies home. Teaching is familiar territory for her, from her London courses to a judging seat on MasterChef South Africa, but this marks a longer-term handover: what she leaves behind stays on the menu for a month.

Timed to Women's Month

The dinner's placement in August is deliberate. Majozi came up in kitchens where she was often the only woman on the brigade, and much of her career since has been spent addressing that imbalance, both through Women in Hospitality and within the teams she has led. Hosting her during Women's Month puts that history in front of guests and press at a moment when representation at the top of the industry carries particular weight.

Nokx Majozi: A Brief Career Sketch

Majozi trained at Durban University of Technology and began her career at the Riverside Hotel in Durban before Disney recruited her to Orlando to cook South African food. Stints in Miami followed, and she has worked in London since 2002, moving through the InterContinental Park Lane, The Landmark and Brown's Hotel in Mayfair before joining Rosewood London in 2014, where The Pie Room became a destination in its own right. Jay Rayner named her one of his Rising Stars in 2022, and CODE has named her one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Hospitality for two consecutive years.

She has appeared on Sunday Brunch and Saturday Kitchen with James Martin, and been featured in Observer Food Monthly, The Caterer and Sainsbury's Magazine. Guest appearances include a one-night takeover at chi SPACCA in Los Angeles, and she has returned to South Africa as a guest judge on MasterChef South Africa. She has also been recognised by MIPD (Most Influential People of African Descent). Her first book, The South African Cookbook, is published this year by Bloomsbury.

The Details

Heirloom's first four hands dinner takes place on Saturday, 22 August, with a single seating at 18:30. Seats are R1,500 per person, including a Cap Classique welcome, with numbers limited to eighty guests; a 50 per cent deposit confirms the reservation.

Majozi's pie is available at Heirloom from 23 August through 23 September. Cape Grace also hosts the Cape Town launch of The South African Cookbook on Thursday, 20 August, from 18:00 (event begins 18:30), with canapés, drinks and a question-and-answer session with the author.

More information is available via Cape Grace Hotel's channels, including @capegracehotel.