Rosemarie Saunders

Chef

Born in Britain, Rosemarie comes from a family of restaurateurs and learnt at an early age about the importance of fresh ingredients, being thrifty and the value of people and money. She attended Hotel and Catering School in Birmingham, followed by a teaching qualification while working in London.

Stopping off in South Africa in the early 1970s on her way to Australia, the lure of the Cape kept her here and she worked at 5-star hotels such as the Mount Nelson in Cape Town and the Beacon Island Hotel in Plettenberg Bay, before joining Woolworths head office as catering manageress. She later became a food selector. Leaving the corporate world to start her family, her love of food prompted her to start giving cookery lessons from her home kitchen, but an unexpected phone call launched her into a catering career.

This grew into a catering business, event management, food and wine tours to France, cookery books, food supplies to farm stalls and contracts to cater and teach in foreign parts of the world. She has entertained and catered to the rich, famous, (and sometimes infamous) from her homes in France and Cape Town.