Kobus has a very particular set of skills, skills he acquired over a very long career… Skills that make him an absolute nightmare for some… and a dream for people like yourself.
Kobus Botha, professionally known as Kobus Braai, is a South African chef, award-winning television presenter, cookbook author, freediver, adventurer, and former film producer who has built an international reputation around the art of cooking with fire. Born in South Africa’s Klein Karoo region, he studied drama at the University of Cape Town before beginning a successful career in the international film and television industry.
After relocating to France, Botha reinvented himself as a chef and culinary entrepreneur, creating the Kobus Braai brand and becoming one of the leading ambassadors of South African braai culture in Europe. Through large-scale live-fire events, culinary travel experiences, intimate gatherings, and media appearances, he has introduced South African open-fire cooking to international audiences while combining traditional braai techniques with storytelling, travel, and outdoor living.
He is best known in South Africa as co-presenter and judge of the hit television series Kokkedoor: Vuur en Vlam, which gained international recognition in 2024 when it was shortlisted among the final nine productions in the Content Innovation Awards at MIPCOM Cannes. Botha and fellow presenter Bertus Basson later received the kykNET Silwerskerm Award for Best Reality Show Presenters. His publishing work has also received international acclaim, including Gourmand World Cookbook Awards “Best in the World” honours for his cookbooks.
A passionate freediver, spearfisherman, forager, and wild-food explorer, Botha increasingly focuses on open-fire cooking inspired by nature and travel. His adventurous life has included remote expeditions, years of living semi-nomadically across France, South Africa, and Namibia, and surviving a shark attack while freediving off the South African coast. These experiences continue to shape a culinary philosophy rooted in exploration, resilience, nature, and the relationship between fire, landscape, and food.
Botha often describes his approach as the “jazz of cooking” — instinctive, improvisational, and deeply connected to the moment, the fire, the environment, and the ingredients at hand. He believes in technique rather than recipes, learning directly from people who have spent decades mastering specific dishes over fire and passing those traditions from generation to generation. His philosophy is shaped as much by fishermen, shepherds, hunters, foragers, and rural cooks as by professional kitchens, drawing inspiration from regional traditions such as the French éclade de moules, where mussels are cooked beneath burning pine needles. Rather than rigid culinary rules or fine-dining formality, his cooking embraces spontaneity, storytelling, wild ingredients, and the unpredictable rhythm of nature, where intuition, experience, and fire shape every meal.
Known for his sharp wit, intelligence, and unconventional perspective on food and life, Botha combines humour, storytelling, and deep culinary knowledge in both his television work and live events. His relaxed but insightful style, shaped by years of travel, filmmaking, outdoor living, and cultural exploration, has made him a distinctive and recognisable personality both on screen and around the fire.