As we kick off the Food Creator category of the TJR 100 Creators, we begin with someone who proves that passion doesn’t have to fit neatly into one profession.
By day, he’s a general surgeon trusted with lives in the operating theatre. By night—and often in between—he’s in the kitchen, transforming everyday ingredients into dishes that inspire thousands of people to cook with confidence and creativity.
I had a chat with Dr. Philip Munda to talk about balancing surgery and content creation, life after MasterChef, the realities of creating food content, and why flavour will always come first.
You’re a general surgeon and a food creator; two worlds that don’t often intersect. How did your passion for food begin, and at what point did you realise it deserved a platform of its own?
I started to learn to cook in 2012 as a necessity once I’d moved out of university residence.
This turned into a passion when I began to watch cooking shows, most notably Masterchef Australia which showed me how creative one can get with food and how far you can push the boundaries of very simple ingredients to extract maximum flavors.
In 2020 I started to cook and document it a lot more alongside my wife Ash. We had so much fun doing it together and were even invited to Cape Town to host a popup at a restaurant (Seed & Circus – now closed) which was exhausting but a lot of fun.
Many people know you from your content today, but you also competed on MasterChef. What was that experience really like, and what did it teach you about yourself?
MasterChef South Africa was one of the greatest experiences of my life to this point. I feel so fortunate to have been chosen to compete against 19 other brilliant home cooks who helped me to learn and grow in the kitchen but have also truly become lifelong friends.
Surprisingly it was far more stressful than performing surgery believe it or not! But it taught me that I have a huge creative side that I don’t get to access at my day job and how important nurturing that is to my overall happiness.
At the end of the days on set I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but I felt fulfilled.
As someone with a medical background, has your understanding of health, nutrition, and wellness influenced the way you approach food content?
To be honest, I don’t cook in a way that counts calories or is strictly about optional nutrition. I do want to always try to make sure my meals are well balanced but the unfortunate truth is that really good food often has a little bit more butter, oil or salt than would be acceptable by strict nutritionists and I never let anything get between me and flavour.
MasterChef places contestants under immense pressure. What was the most challenging moment you faced during the competition, and how did you overcome it?
The most challenging moment for me was definitely during the second episode. I had come through the application process thinking I was a very good home cook and that I had the skills and knowledge to potentially go far in the competition.
That episode I was in the bottom 6 and my dish was even called “insipid” by Chef Katlego Mlambo. I was ashamed and seeing what others had produced that day showed me how tough the competition would really be and how much I had to learn.
Speaking to my wife Ash helped me to regain some confidence and perspective so I decided I had to really focus on every cook and push myself to produce things I wouldn’t usually make at home to stand out and also to learn as much as I could from my fellow contestants.
You’ve built a successful platform around food, but medicine is a demanding profession. How do you balance both careers without compromising on quality or authenticity?
I am a doctor first and foremost so when work gets very busy my content creation does tend to suffer for a good cause. I have always said that cooking is one of the best hobbies to have because we all must eat 3 times a day so enjoying the process that goes into it is a blessing.
What I try to do these days is optimize my cooking and try to shoot as much content as possible so that when I do have gaps between rounds or operating, I can dedicate some time to making good quality content that isn’t overproduced and stays true to my personal brand.
Food content is one of the most competitive categories online. What do you think makes people connect with your content in particular?
I try to keep the recipes I make relatable and reproducible while also wanting to challenge people to push themselves at home. My World Cup Fusion content was a fun idea and a big hit because it seized the cultural moment of the world cup and is also hopefully teaching people about foods and cultures they wouldn’t have engaged with previously.
My wife also says my baritone voice is doing a lot of heavy lifting!
Social media often highlights the finished dish, but not the work behind it. What are some of the realities and challenges of being a food creator that people don’t see?
Yoh! Filming and cooking is NOT EASY. Once you get into the grove it becomes better but making sure every shot is perfect and that there isn’t any mess around (I’m a very messy cook) and that you’ve got all the shots you were aiming for can be tricky.
I recently made a lamb shank pasta dish but was so hungry at the end I forgot to get the most important shot of the meat falling off the bone and so I had to ditch all the hours I had filmed.
If you could prepare one meal for any three people, dead or alive, who would be sitting at your table and what would you serve them?
Antony Bourdain, Fatima Sydow and Les da Chef (Lesego Semenya). These are 3 chefs gone far too soon who all highlight aspects of food and cooking I respect.
Viewing food through an important cultural lens and not shying away from simplicity but also being willing to make mistakes and push the boundaries. I would love to serve them my Peanut Butter Chicken curry as part of a curry feast alongside paratha, turmeric rice, saag paneer and some sambals.
Les and Fatima would feel right at home but intrigued by my peanut butter idea and I’m sure Antony Bourdain would dive right in and make us all feel like we’d known each other for ages.
When the camera is off, the recipes are done, and you’re not wearing a doctor’s scrubs, who are you?
I’m a peacekeeper, chatty-Kathy and people pleaser. I will always make sure that the people around me feel loved and comfortable and happy, looking after others is definitely my primary way of showing love.
You can find me on stage at a karaoke bar having the time of my life and encourage others to shake off the shyness and let themselves loose.
As the first feature in our Food Creator category of the TJR 100 Creators, his story sets the table for the inspiring creators still to come. And if there’s one takeaway from our conversation, it’s this: great food isn’t just about what’s on the plate—it’s about the stories, people and passion that bring it to life.
Who do you want us to feature next? Nominate them here!
The Joburg Reporter 
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