Chef Mel

Mel is TAKING On the World

With a smile that can light up a room, Chef Mel Alafaci has become a globally recognised chef and personality.  Her recent success in the USA means she’s Australia’s hottest rising culinary personality.

She is the proud founder of the very popular Vanilla Zulu Cooking School in Brisbane.  With an entirely new and fresh approach to cooking and a culinary lingo all of her own, she makes cooking fabulous fun.

With the release of her new cookbook “Culinary Quickies” Mel helps you discover a chef’s secrets on how to be faster, happier and more confident in the kitchen…and get a round of applause every time you cook a meal…you can live happily ever after in your kitchen! Culinary Quickies is a must for every foodie or wanna be a foodie.

Mel has traveled the world in search of new delights to share with her ever growing audience. From her first cooking school in Durban South Africa to foodie tours and writing in Switzerland, Zurich, Mexico, Amsterdam and New York. Mel has done it all and has loved calling Australia home. It’s here she has grown Vanilla Zulu Culinary Adventures and become one of Australia’s best loved chefs. As a self-proclaimed Cultural Gastronomist, Mel loves to unearth how food is enjoyed in other cultures.  She blames her passion for food and travel on her backpacking chef days, where she ‘cooked’ herself around the world, eagerly learning every cultural secret she could and then sharing all of her newfound recipes with anyone that would listen.  Her passion and enthusiasm for food is unwavering.