When Brett Ladds opens his first restaurant this week, he'll put his experience of cooking for royalty, international celebrities and 54 heads of state to good use.Ladds, 43, worked as a chef and host at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria for six years, mostly while Nelson Mandela was in office. The two formed a close bond - despite getting off to a rocky start - and Madiba helped the naive young chef overcome his fear of the new South Africa."In February 1994, I was 21 and working as an apprentice cook under French chef Christian Michel," Ladds recalled."Christian had been in charge of catering for Pik Botha while he was foreign minister, but was retired and doing his own thing. One night the phone rang. Botha asked him to come back ... He told Christian: 'The ANC is coming in, we need you to come and sort of introduce them to the guesthouse because they are going to be in power.'"A week later, Ladds was working at the guesthouse with Michel. "I was intimidated. There were these black people and the only thing we had seen on TV was that we were going to die."Tata's bodyguards didn't trust anyone, understandably so. Eventually, when they started realising we were not a threat, things started getting nice," he said.After his inauguration, Mandela stayed on at the guesthouse to be close to the Union Buildings. Ladds recalls when they met: "I was working the late shift. The bodyguards were downstairs and I was upstairs cleaning up when I heard a voice say: 'Who is there?'"I almost s**t myself - the first thing that came to mind was: 'Take your shoes off and run.' As I opened the door, there was Madiba sitting in a huge floral chair and he said: 'Come here, boy.'"I walked up to him and he was trying to calm me down. He asked why I was so scared. Naively, I said: 'Why haven't you killed us?'"How stupid was that?"Ladds said Mandela told him to relax. "He eased my fear. He told me: 'If I must live for yesterday, I'd rather die today and not see tomorrow.'"Ladds continued to serve Mandela his favourite lamb chops when he visited the guesthouse until he stepped down as president in 1999. He served another year under Thabo Mbeki.While at the guesthouse, Ladds hosted Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, supermodel Naomi Campbell, musician Quincy Jones, pop star Michael Jackson, and up to "54 heads of state".Chefs@566 opens on Saturday in Garsfontein, Pretoria. Ladds will cook in the restaurant's eating area so he can interact with guests while making their food...