Moses Besele Moloi

The Climb

Formal training at Olive Chefs School put technique, repetition, timing, and station discipline before authorship for Moses Besele Moloi. The first professional kitchen named in his path was The Marine Hotel in Hermanus, South Africa, where hotel service set a rhythm of consistency, restraint, and plates that had to hold under daily scrutiny. Luxury-hospitality standards entered the work through an internship at The Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida. On returning to South Africa, the progression moved through defined brigade roles: Junior Sous Chef at The Greenhouse, then Sous Chef at Grei at The Saxon Hotel. Those posts matter because they sit between execution and leadership, where a cook is expected to protect consistency while contributing to the kitchen’s creative clarity. Kitchen leadership became explicit from 2021, when Moloi became Head Chef at Zioux in Sandton, South Africa. The post marked the shift from senior support to responsibility for direction: reading the room, holding the pass, setting standards, and carrying a team through service. In the context of his career, Zioux gathered the earlier training, hotel discipline, and fine-dining pressure into one command role. Ownership and executive leadership now extend the craft beyond the pass. Moses is co-owner and Executive Chef of GIGI Restaurant and Consulting Chef of Ethos, roles that require menu thinking, team structure, restaurant identity, and the translation of kitchen judgement into systems other people can execute.

Today

Chef-ownership at Gigi in Johannesburg keeps Contemporary South African cuisine as the central brief for Moloi. At GIGI Restaurant in Midrand, South Africa, his work as co-owner and Executive Chef places that brief inside a larger operating structure: not only what is cooked, but how the room, menu, pace, and service systems hold together. Executive leadership and consultation require different forms of craft control. A chef-owner is accountable for the plate and the conditions around it; a Consulting Chef has to make decisions legible to another team without relying on constant presence at the stove. In Moloi’s current work, authorship is tied to execution, delegation, and the shape of the restaurant as a working organism. The opening work at Gigi was described by Moloi in practical terms: "Here’s another sneak peek as we approach the final stages. Just a few more touches, and we’ll be ready to open our doors at @gigi_jhb." The language is close to the work itself: final adjustments, readiness, the move from build-out and prep into service. The career reads as a station-by-station accumulation rather than a jump in status. Training came first, then hotel discipline, international exposure, sous-chef responsibility, head-chef command, and now ownership, executive leadership, and consultation. At Gigi, GIGI Restaurant, and Ethos, the through-line is Contemporary South African cooking handled by a chef who has come through the kitchen in sequence.

In Their Words “Here’s another sneak peek as we approach the final stages. Just a few more touches, and we’ll be ready to open our doors at @gigi_jhb.”

Recognition

Recognition for the work includes Best Chef in South Africa (2024), One Knife (2025), and Two EatOut stars for Zioux.