Garth Almazan

The opening of Leeto restaurant in Paternoster on the Cape West Coast marks a pivotal moment in the career of this well-loved chef from the Constantia winelands

- Michelle Coburn

I grew up in Heathfield in Cape Town, where I lived with my parents and my grandmother. My mom worked, so my gran took care of all the cooking in our home. My earliest childhood food memories are of standing in our kitchen watching her preparing a variety of fish and seafood, which my dad brought home. He was a fisherman and had boats in Kalk Bay that he’d take out in False Bay or up the West Coast. One of my childhood favourite recipes of my gran’s was a whole butterflied fish seasoned with curry spices and lemon and pan-fried in butter.

My gran never allowed anyone else to help with preparing and cooking, but when I was about eight years old she let me start with the “dirty” jobs like scaling the fish, and then I moved on to filleting. I also learnt to cook crayfish (they weren’t red-listed in those days) in a pressure cooker – just 10 minutes and they were done perfectly.