Pretoria chef Chantel Dartnall, of Mosaic Restaurant, has scooped top honours at the 2009 Prudential Eat Out Chef of the Year award.
The annual awards ceremony, held on Sunday night at the Westin Grand Hotel in Cape Town, is called the Foodie Oscars, and is a "celebration of culinary excellence", said Eat Out editor Abigail Donnelly.
This is the first time that Dartnall, with an all-woman team in the kitchen, has been honoured with this award. Donnelly said Dartnall added a personal touch to every aspect of the restaurant - from her passion for the tastes and textures of decadent ingredients to her love for beautiful crockery.
The restaurant is housed in the The Orient Boutique Hotel in the Francolin Conservation Area, Elandsfontein, Crocodile River Valley. The restaurant also clinched second place in the Prudential Eat Out Top 10 Restaurants.
Donnelly said many of the "newcomers" had raised the standard at this year's ceremony.