Our Standard
Khaya — home. Table — together.
Khaya is your home. We bring the warmth and rhythm of a beautifully run home to South Africa's finest villas.
The service we provide is highly personalised. Our team, equipped with years of experience in luxury hospitality both locally and internationally, will understand your preferences and ensure that your stay is seamless and stress free.
Our Story
From the world's best-run villas, to your own.
Before Khaya Table, Mike and Tessa spent years working across some of the world's most demanding luxury hospitality settings. They met in South Africa, in high-end industries of their own, before joining the charter yachting world together for four years. It was there, cooking, provisioning and hosting guests through the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and parts of Southeast Asia, that they noticed a pattern. In each of those places, established companies were doing for high-end villa guests exactly what Khaya Table now does here: arriving to a fully stocked home, a private chef on hand, an event run start to finish without a guest ever lifting a phone. Nothing comparable existed back home.
They chose the Garden Route, and Plettenberg Bay in particular, as the place to start. It's a region built for large family and group holidays, especially through summer, yet its infrastructure strains under that same seasonal influx: queues, traffic, restaurants booked out weeks ahead. Khaya Table exists to give guests the villa holiday the region promises, without the admin that usually comes with it, so their time goes to each other, not to queuing.
The Founders
Mike and Tessa
Mike Waller
Mike holds a BSocSci in Politics and International Relations and an LLB, though his career took him elsewhere: first into South Africa's luxury safari industry as an FGASA-qualified field guide, then four years in ultra-high-end yachting hospitality. As a guest-facing front-of-house guide and watersports coach, and later as a charter yacht captain, including S/Y Wanderlust and Centerline in the BVIs, Mike spent years learning exactly what high-end guests expect and delivering it before they have to ask. He is also a PADI dive instructor.
On a charter yacht, a guest never has to chase anyone down, and there's no letting agent or property manager standing between them and what they need. That's the standard Mike brings into every villa: quietly coordinating with your letting agency or property manager so access, delivery timing and set-up are sorted before you arrive, reading a group's rhythm within the first day, and catching the small requests, another round of drinks by the pool, a change to tomorrow's plans, before you've had to ask twice.
Tessa Pillay
Tessa is a Registered Dietitian (BSc Dietetics, Stellenbosch University). Her career began working with in- and out-patients where she planned therapeutic menus for patients managing diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, controlled allergens, audited food safety to HACCP standards, and kept menus varied and adapted to each person's preferences. In yachting she worked her way through the boat, from deck and interior service to the galley, cooking for charter guests aboard M/Y Far Niente, S/Y The Idler and S/Y Wanderlust, eventually running full charter programmes as sole chef: provisioning on a budget, sourcing locally, and managing vessel accounts. Her food is fresh, Mediterranean in spirit and built around local produce. She has catered for nut allergies, gluten and lactose intolerances, and the comment she hears most from guests is that they feel good after her meals as she prioritising using fresh, local produce. She also understands safe first foods for families travelling with little ones, and continues to work as a dietitian, running her own online practice for yacht crew and South African clients.
That background shows up directly in your villa. Menus are built around real dietary needs and allergies because clinical nutrition is Tessa's actual training, not a chef's sideline. Provisioning is precise rather than approximate: she has spent years working out exactly how much a group of ten or twelve will need for a week and sourcing it fresh and local within a set budget, so your fridge and pantry stay properly stocked from arrival to departure rather than running short by day four. And the food safety habits of a hospital dietitian, the kind of hygiene and handling most private chefs are never trained in, travel with her into every kitchen she runs.
Together, Mike and Tessa bring a rare combination to the Garden Route: the guest-service instincts of high-end hospitality, and the technical discipline of feeding and provisioning demanding groups at scale. It's the difference between a villa stay that's well looked after and one that's genuinely seamless, built by two people who spent years learning, professionally, what that actually takes.
We invite you to discover the rhythm of Khaya Table, reach out to our team and let us enhance your experience.