“I want diners to appreciate that sometimes it can be more than just eating food, it can also relax you and give you medicinal benefits.”
CBD contains no psychoactive chemicals and is mostly used for medicinal reasons including relief from pain, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has put limitations on the dosage of CBD products, which means only products with less than 600mg per package and less than 20mg per dose are allowed without prescription.
Matshabe's dishes include roasted chicken pizza and calzones, burgers and Caesar salads.
His personal favourite is an infused milkshake he's made for himself. “I really enjoyed it because it's cold, I can drink it slowly and just enjoy the feeling.”
Matshabe caters for private clients, who have the option of ordering from a normal menu or the one with infused dishes for their event.
He charges R150 per head, which includes a starter and main course, but this increases to R200 if they want that “special” ingredient. This means that a group of 20 would fork out R4,000 for a two-course meal.
Matshabe has catered for a variety of people, mostly in the entertainment industry, including fashion designers, models, artists, producers and hip-hop artists.
Despite this, he says he doesn't have a target market as “cannabis itself doesn't have a target market”.
“Anyone smokes it over the age of 21,” he explained.
Matshabe hopes to set up pop-up stores and host private demonstrations at home.
“What I want to do is to keep promoting this CBD thing until cannabis is legalised [for resale]. That's when I can start using that in my infused food legally in South Africa,” he said.
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Polokwane's ‘hippie chef’ offers ‘relaxing’ dishes using cannabis oil
Image: Supplied
When one thinks of cannabis and food, it's usually baked goods and sweet treats that come to mind. A Limpopo chef wants to dispel this idea, by creating an experience for his diners with CBD [cannabidiol] oil-infused dishes.
Lethabo Matshabe, affectionately known as the “hippie chef”, is making meals that aim to leave clients happy and relaxed but without the high or any of the usual lingering side effects.
Creating this unique dining experience was not always on the cards for Matshabe, who in an interview explained that he initially wanted to become an economist before ditching that dream when he realised analysing numbers and data was not his thing.
“I never really thought of being a chef, I was just always in the kitchen, helping with the cooking. Later on when I decided to reconnect with my father, I realised my dad can cook. He taught me how to cook and I started loving the kitchen,” he recalled.
The 21-year-old graduated with a one-year certificate from a chef school and ventured into the industry, with brief stints at two eateries in Polokwane
His inspiration for creating CBD oil-infused meals came from making dishes that had dagga for his own personal consumption. This started with the usual space cookies but after doing research, he found that because cannabis binds to fat molecules, “any type of food that can be cooked with oil” can be infused with it.
Matshabe opted to use CBD oil because of its harmless properties and legal use.
Image: Supplied
“I want diners to appreciate that sometimes it can be more than just eating food, it can also relax you and give you medicinal benefits.”
CBD contains no psychoactive chemicals and is mostly used for medicinal reasons including relief from pain, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has put limitations on the dosage of CBD products, which means only products with less than 600mg per package and less than 20mg per dose are allowed without prescription.
Matshabe's dishes include roasted chicken pizza and calzones, burgers and Caesar salads.
His personal favourite is an infused milkshake he's made for himself. “I really enjoyed it because it's cold, I can drink it slowly and just enjoy the feeling.”
Matshabe caters for private clients, who have the option of ordering from a normal menu or the one with infused dishes for their event.
He charges R150 per head, which includes a starter and main course, but this increases to R200 if they want that “special” ingredient. This means that a group of 20 would fork out R4,000 for a two-course meal.
Matshabe has catered for a variety of people, mostly in the entertainment industry, including fashion designers, models, artists, producers and hip-hop artists.
Despite this, he says he doesn't have a target market as “cannabis itself doesn't have a target market”.
“Anyone smokes it over the age of 21,” he explained.
Matshabe hopes to set up pop-up stores and host private demonstrations at home.
“What I want to do is to keep promoting this CBD thing until cannabis is legalised [for resale]. That's when I can start using that in my infused food legally in South Africa,” he said.
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
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