Staff appointment

Trevor Boyd is general manager of food and beverage at City Lodge Hotels

Trevor started his culinary career as a chef on Rovos Rail after completing his National Diploma in Catering Management at Wits Technikon Hotel School. In 1995, he joined a brigade at the Rand Aid Association preparing cook/chill meals for 3000 people a day. He went on to join Fedics at Country Club Johannesburg as chef de partie then sous chef, followed by head chef at the Country Club’s Woodmead clubhouse, and onto Carnival City where he was appointed executive chef in charge of all of the food and beverage outlets and catering for the entire complex.

In 2002, Trevor took up a position as senior sous chef at the Mount Nelson Hotel before being transferred to the renowned Cape Colony Restaurant. He moved back to Johannesburg to the position of executive chef at the Mount Grace Country Hotel, and then back to Cape Town to open Le Franschhoek Hotel & Spa as executive chef. In 2007, he returned to Gauteng as executive chef of the Sheraton Hotel Pretoria before sharing his expertise with young minds at HTA School of Culinary Art as Culinary Quality Assurance Manager.

Trevor embarked on an entrepreneurial journey for a few years, launching Salon de Culinaire and Schweet Emporium, before returning to the kitchen as executive chef of the InterContinental OR Tambo Airport. He then joined the Michelangelo Hotel in 2015, overseeing all aspects of the kitchen and priding himself on delivering great meals at the famous gourmet food and wine dinners held at the hotel’s restaurant Piccolo Mondo, which sadly closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the competitions front, Trevor joined the South African Chefs Association’s prestigious Team South Africa in 2000, which went on to compete in the American Culinary Classic in Chicago in 2003, winning two silver and two bronze medals, and the IKA Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany in 2004, bringing home three silver medals and one bronze. He has also represented South Africa at the Food & Hotel Asia 2006 Culinary Challenge in Singapore, where the Team won two silver medals. One of his international competition highlights was at the IKA Culinary Olympics in Erfurt in 2008 when Team South Africa achieved a gold medal in the Restaurant of Nations, and two silver medals and one bronze in the Culinary Arts display.

In 2016, Trevor once again joined Culinary Team South Africa at the IKA Culinary Olympics in Erfurt winning a bronze medal. This led to Trevor’s appointment as team manager, training the young chefs for the IKA Culinary Olympics 2020 in Stuttgart, Germany, at which they achieved three bronze medals. In 2019, Trevor was inducted into the Academy of Chefs, an elite fellowship within the SA Chefs Association that acknowledges achievements and aims at development and succession within the industry.

Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo, chief operating officer at City Lodge Hotel Group, says, “The City Lodge Hotel group has had an enormous amount of success in its culinary journey to date which has contributed towards excellent guest feedback and superb revenue growth. During the past two years, including the challenging Covid-19 period, we have immersed ourselves in listening and reacting to the evolving wants and needs of our guests. In order to embrace the changing traveller and hone our competitive edge, we have taken the strategic move towards creatively and cleverly enhancing our food and beverage offerings across all brands of the group. Trevor is an enthusiastic, experienced and talented chef with immense energy and a contagious smile and we look forward to embarking on our new food and beverage journey with him at the helm.”

(From left) Zuki Jantjies, divisional director of sales and marketing with Trevor Boyd, newly appointed general manager of food and beverage, pictured at the City Lodge Hotel Bryanston.