With the Eat Out Restaurant Relief Fund, world-renowned chefs have come together to help people in need and to cover some of the costs of pandemic-affected businesses in South Africa.

The fund, which opened on April 24, has so far collected 1,486,577 South African Rand (about 86,000 USD), including a donation from S.Pellegrino for R 200,000. The money raised so far has been used by restaurants to mobilize for those in need of help and cook hearty meals. Award-winning chef Bertus Basson, owner of Overture, Eike, Spek & Bone and De Vrije Burgers, has joined with other restaurant operators and winemakers in Stellenbosch to cook 20,000 meals a week. Chef Chris Erasmus of Foliage restaurant and Darren Badenhorst of Le Coin Français and Le Chêne restaurants helped people with the Isabelo project by turning fine dining restaurants into a food production line. Big Momma’s, from Cape Town, doubled their kitchen for delivery services and to provide hot food to children/youth centres in the area, Fine Dining Lovers reported.