For more than a decade, it is thought, he lived a double life - that of a celebrity chef by night and an alleged serial rapist by day.
Fanwell Khumalo goes on trial in the Johannesburg High Court today accused of 132 counts of rape, sexual assault, kidnapping and possession of "something that looked like a firearm". He is accused of 42 counts of rape.
There has never been anyone accused of so many child rapes in the history of South Africa.
Khumalo was the former chef at Iyavaya, an African restaurant that first started in Yeoville, which then expanded and moved to Rosebank.
Visiting celebrities such as Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Iman, Nina Simone, Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour droppped in to sample his food.
Khumalo was probably at the height of his career.
But one evening in May 2000 he was arrested on 24 counts of child rape. Since then more than 100 counts have been added to his charge sheet.
Dubbed "Johannesburg's most-wanted serial rapist", he was investigated by a 15-member task team.
Officers worked 12-hour shifts patrolling the streets they suspected he prowled.
He was accused of haunting the streets of Yeoville, Hillbrow, Berea and Alexandra, raping girls between the ages of seven and 14.
After he was arrested, police called him charming, soft-spoken, neatly dressed, and a man who had a "knack with children".
He would approach schoolgirls and ask them for directions.
He would charm them and gain their confidence to the extent that they would trust him enough to follow him to parks, open fields and empty houses, where he allegedly raped them, police said.
Khumalo, in the late 90s, became a darling of food critics, who marvelled at his exotic African cuisine - recipes he said he had mastered from visiting countries all over Africa.
Much was spoken about his Moroccan chicken stew, mopani worms, his seafood dishes from Cameroon and East African curries.
Khumalo's specialities also included crocodiles and hippos, and when one food critic hesitated, he responded saying: "They eat us so that we eat them."
And throughout his brief period of fame in the press, Khumalo would portray himself as a dedicated chef, constantly on the lookout for new recipes.
Cooking was apparently his great passion, and he said he had dedicated his life to it.
Khumalo claimed to have become a member of the former South African Defence Force's infamous 32 Battalion, which was alleged to have been made up of ex-Rhodesians and ex-Namibians, and rumoured to have committed terrible atrocities.
He claimed to have been in the army for two years in order to repay a government loan he had taken to attend catering school.
"But if you talk about it, then it backfires on you... But I didn't forget about food. Cooking is my only hope," Khumalo had said.
He told journalists that he travelled to Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Zanzibar and many other African countries for "food research".
In an interview immediately after his arrest, his wife championed his innocence.
She took out cuttings of articles done by various papers and magazines and questioned the relevance in arresting him.
"He is such a great man. Look here, look at all this. How can people think he is guilty?"