Rousseau Hill (nicknames as Ross) was born in Pretoria and has been residing in Namibia since 2014.
As a qualified Executive Chef and well experienced General Manager from the Hospitality industry, he made sure he covered as much areas as possible in the Hospitality industry. He qualified in 2003 as Chef with Extinction on his Diploma and worked his way up to Executive Chef in a very short time.
His passion and love for the industry truly shows through in everything he does, and has pushed him to grow more and more in the industry.
Over the years Rousseau has worked in all kinds of establishments, including resorts, 3-to-5-star Hotels and lodges. His repertoire includes fine dining and mass catering experience. He was the Complex Executive Chef for the Carnival City Casino in Johannesburg and spent some time in a more corporate environment as the National Development Executive Chef for Bidvest Foodservices South Africa.
In 2014 Ross and his family relocated to Namibia as the General Manager for Protea Hotel Pelican Bay. A short while later Long Beach Protea and Burning Shore Protea became part of his portfolio as General Manager, running 3 hotels as General Manager at that time.
He later took up the opportunity to open his own restaurant and was very successful, ending with 3 restaurants of his own. Unfortunately the first big recession in 2017 took it's toll and Ross was forced to close his restaurants due to the economy and excessive cost of property rentals.
He continued with consulting and private catering and was offered a fantastic consulting Executive Chef contract with a very well-known 5-star lodge. At the end of the contract, he was offered a General Manger position with BON hotels Swakopmund. Rousseau made it his mission to grow the brand and not even 6 months later he managed to add 2 new hotels to the BON portfolio in Namibia.
Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic has take a huge negative impact on the Hospitality sector, especially at its beginning. BON Hotels was forced to pull their brand from the country.
This didn’t stop Rousseau, he continued with catering for people in quarantine in Walvis Bay at the time. He used the moment to convince restaurant owners to use the time at a minimum fee to do consulting for them, creating new menus with costings, recipe cards and more.
When the time came to open again, they could open with a new menu, better cost saving and a WOW to the public. ("Always plan to be ahead of your situation!" was a lesson well learned by Rousseau.)
An opportunity brought itself to his door and he was contracted for a start up of a Floatel vessel in Walvis Bay. This was a fantastic success and they still contract him today to assist them with training, new recipes and menus for the vessels.
Rousseau and his Family moved from the coast to Windhoek in 2021 where he had a contract will a very well-established Lodge in Windhoek for 9 months to assist as Executive Chef. He is focused on building his catering for all events as well as Private Chef and Relief Chef, as well as continue to be available to (Hospitality, Canteens on and Off shore) restaurants and hotels to consult and assist with menu planning, costings, training and other operational consulting needs and support.
He spend some time traveling, Mozambique, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Spain, Israel where he catered both on and offshore.
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