Leah van Deventer

The Path

Judging, education, and awards stewardship define the reach of Leah van Deventer’s work in drinks. As judge of South African Rum Awards, judge of Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, judge of Diageo World Class Cocktail Competition, academy chair of The World's 50 Best Bars, director of Protégé Bartender Programme, and South African ambassador of Old Fashioned Week, she operates across the spaces where standards are set and measured. The scope matters here: these are roles tied to evaluation, development, and recognition, not to a single bar program or one market. The connective work in this field is often the hardest to see. Through judging, Leah van Deventer is part of the process that separates competent execution from work that holds under scrutiny. Through academy chair, she helps frame how excellence is discussed. Through the Protégé Bartender Programme, she is linked to the pipeline for emerging bartenders, while Old Fashioned Week places her within a classic serve that continues to be revisited and re-read. Taken together, the roles place her in the machinery of contemporary cocktail culture, where taste, language, and standards are continually negotiated.

The Work Today

Academy chair at The World's 50 Best Bars is a position of influence over how the bar trade is read, ranked, and remembered. In that role, Leah van Deventer sits between taste and structure, helping guide the framework through which bars are assessed and recognised. It is work that carries weight because reputations in hospitality are built through repeated evaluation, not one-off acclaim.

Signature

Memory Triggers and Dreams and Desires are the signature dishes, and both read like menus built around sensation rather than simple service. Memory Triggers points to aroma, recall, and the way flavour can surface a memory before anything is fully parsed. Dreams and Desires carries a different charge: broader, more speculative, and open to interpretation. In both cases, the work suggests a controlled use of mood and association as part of the craft.

In Their Words “The two menus – designed by Chef Ryan Clift and me – were created to explore the senses.” “Our first was Memory Triggers; the best way to create Memory Triggers is through aroma.” These lines describe collaboration as a working method rather than a slogan. The menus were designed with Chef Ryan Clift and Leah van Deventer to move through the senses, with aroma singled out as the first lever in Memory Triggers. That places scent at the front of the composition, before taste settles in, and shows a way of building hospitality from perception outward.