The well-known international chef Reza is in South Africa and visited Cape Town today to launch his brand-new African cooking and exotic travelogue series, Reza's African Kitchen which will start on The Food Network (DStv 175) from Monday 25 March on weekdays at 11:50 and 17:15.
In Reza's African Kitchen (which will have repeats on Mondays at 21:00 and Sundays at 13:05 and 14:45 on The Food Network) viewers will see the inimitable chef go on a veritable Southern African food safari.
Reza's African Kitchen is the second specifically African TV production commissioned by The Food Network to make it to air on the fast-growing channel, following on after the delightful Jenny Cooks Marocco from celebrity chef Jenny Morris.
Jenny Cooks Marocco was an instant South African TV hit when it was broadcast on The Food Network last year. The beloved Jenny Morris who runs the popular The Giggling Gourmet in Cape Town delivered record viewership ratings for channel - something The Food Network hopes to replicate with Reza's African Kitchen.
"The Food Network continues to make its mark in South Africa on DStv and we're incredibly excited about Reza's new show which follows 16% viewership growth year-on-year for The Food Network on DStv," says Nick Thorogood, the senior vice president for content and marketing for the UK and the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA) for Scripps Network Interactive.
Nick Thorogood jetted in from London to South Africa and visited Johannesburg, and then Cape Town today.
"The Food Network in South Africa now attracts more than half a million viewers a day and the channel continues to grow and expand with quality programming and entertainment with food at its heart," says Nick Thorogood.
"I've been in Africa and to South Africa and certain parts, but with Reza's African Kitchen it was my very first time around Southern Africa. Viewers will experience with me extraordinary countries," says Reza who is also known as The Spice Prince.
Reza's African Kitchen will see the Spice Prince explore African cuisine from the spicy Indian influences of exotic locales such as Botswana, Namibia, Zanzibar and Zambia to South Africa's coast while Reza goes tiger fishing, herds sheep, snorkels and even goes horse-riding.
Episodes of Reza's African Kitchen - there's 10 episodes in the first season - were filmed at South Africa's West Coast and the fishing village of Paternoster, Botswana's Okovango Delta, Soweto, Durban, Cape Town and the Karoo in South Africa, a spice plantation and villages in Zanzibar, the luxurious Royal Livingstone Express in Zambia travelling through the Zambezi Valley as well as Namibia.
