Building a hospitality empire — one plate at a time

There seems to be no slowing Natasha Sideris. Twenty years after opening her first Tashas restaurant at Atholl Square in affluent Sandton, she now leads a multi-brand hospitality group with headquarters in the Middle East and global ambitions firmly in motion. The group has 14 brands, many unknown in South Africa, across five countries.

The first Tashas was an immediate success, aimed as it was at people meeting for business purposes, on the way to pick up children from school, or just catching up with friends. Sideris saw the gap in the market — a neutral concept offering food made fresh and served in an appealing space.

Scaling a hospitality business across countries and even regions is notoriously difficult. Local tastes and traditions must be taken into account, and the training of staff cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Tashas group now has 42 locations across South Africa, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UK. Its joint ventures include Ouzeri, covering operations outside South Africa, and Collective Africa, a luxury retail business. Just before the holidays a new Italian-themed restaurant, Arlecchino by Tashas, and Tashas Home, a retail homeware store with ceramics, crockery and other stylish goods, opened in Sea Point.

Recently the group announced a R480m joint venture with a UAE developer, Arada, to open at least 10 new restaurants across the Gulf over the next two years. These will include Tashas and newer concepts such as Cafe Sofi, which has just opened in Cape Town.

Sideris says Cafe Sofi is an ode to her mother — eclectic, artistic and warm.

Many of the Middle East brands sit at the premium end of the market, each with a carefully defined personality and a thread of nostalgia.

The Avli brand draws on Sideris’s Greek heritage and love for Athens. Bungalo34 reflects her memories of the Riviera and her beach bungalow in Greece. Flamingo Room expresses her love for Africa and memories of growing up on the continent.

The Nala brand in Dubai is fast-casual, but still rooted in fresh, made-to-order food with eight- to 12-minute turnaround times. It targets a younger market with shorter menus and lower price points. South African touches include polenta porridge with creamy corn, peppermint crisp pudding, lemon tart and even purple Chappies at the till.

At least three more Nala restaurants are planned for early this year, and the long-term ambition is bold. The group sees potential for up to 300 locations for Nala, mostly in big cities.

Sideris’s attention to detail is absolute, from aesthetics to food quality to the restaurant ambience and the positioning of cutlery on tables. She ensures her vision cascades through the business via carefully chosen leadership.

Sideris is candid about being a micromanager. It is a high-performance culture, she says, but one that rewards loyalty

The group is gearing up for its next phase with the full-time appointment of Tessa Graham as group brand director. Graham, who has worked with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and ocean advocate Lewis Pugh and has been with Sideris as a consultant for more than 15 years, will focus on clarifying what the brands stand for and how they align with the values and vision of the founder.

Culinary director Jill Okkers oversees menus and kitchen operations across the group. Beverage director Krystian Hordejuk stewards the award-winning Galaxy Bar and the group’s cocktail line-up.

Sideris, however, still tastes every dish and signs off every material finish.

At the Dubai head office, she has the names of all 14 outlet brands attached to the walls with a to-do list for each. In her cupboard are plastic containers filled with magazines — travel, décor, food — the sources of her visual and culinary inspiration. The head office hums with energy, employing about 60 people.

 Sideris is candid about being a micromanager. It is a high-performance culture, she says, but one that rewards loyalty: staff have the day off on their birthdays and are given annual return flights home from wherever they are based. Many employees have been with her for well over a decade, some close to two. Precious Dube, once a scullery worker, is now general manager of Tashas Jumeirah, the group’s first UAE outlet.

 Sideris was a speaker at the Global Restaurant Investment Forum gathering in Dubai in October 2025, where she spoke with her usual directness about the realities of international expansion. The UK, she said, is profitable, but London’s costs — rent, labour, food, utilities and regulation — are materially higher than in South Africa or the UAE. She would not expand further there without a local partner.

For her, Dubai has been a platform for opportunity and expansion in the Middle East.

When Sideris started Tashas, there was no grand plan. She had grown up in the restaurant business and saw a gap for upmarket, casual, day-time dining. She borrowed money from a loan shark to open her first two restaurants.

Her brother Savva joined the business two years later and remains her business partner, leading development across the group, with the siblings jointly shaping front-of-house. They work closely with Verhaal, an interior architecture studio started by two South Africans in Australia, which is now also based in Dubai.

And to understand the nuances and dynamics of franchising firsthand, she owns three of the franchised stores herself. Hospitality, she says, remains the core philosophy. “People have chosen, in a competitive world, to spend their money at your restaurant. You must make sure they feel recognised.”

In 2008, Famous Brands took a 51% stake in Tashas, which Sideris bought back in 2020 — a move she now says she should have made sooner. She first visited Dubai at the urging of the then Famous Brands CEO Kevin Hedderwick (who remains a good friend) to explore expansion there, but was initially reluctant to do so. Yet the relationships formed on that trip later brought in her Middle Eastern partners.

Looking ahead, there are bigger ambitions for Tashas. A boutique hotel is brewing in the background — perhaps in Athens, Cape Town or another city where the Tashas brand has a meaningful presence.

Saudi Arabia, where the first Tashas opened in October, will become a major focus from 2027 onwards; Serbia is on hold due to political uncertainty. Sideris does her best to ensure a new venture is in the right market, aimed at the right clientele. “Some of it is gut feel, some of it is research, some of it is spending time in the place,” she says.

Expansion requires constant recalibration: food costs, labour, partners and location. “Training and people are everything.” Whereas many restaurant businesses audit monthly, her head office team audits weekly.

Sideris was awarded an honorary doctorate by Unisa last year for her contribution to hospitality and consumer science and was named one of Forbes Middle East’s “20 leaders behind luxury dining”.

The group is engaged in a private placement to sell a minority stake, allowing some partners to take some cash off the table. The balance of the capital raised will be reinvested for aggressive growth.

“But I might get cold feet,” Sideris laughs. “I’m going to keep doing this until I can’t do it anymore. I always say my career has been a wild mix of dumb luck and very hard work. You can’t exclude luck, I’ve been very blessed and very, very lucky.”

Her advice to aspiring restaurateurs: don’t chase trends or competitors. “Stay focused on your idea. Make sure your concept is rooted in something tangible and lasting. And surround yourself with the best people.”

Nothing, she insists, has ever been about world domination. “All our big moves happened organically — the cookbooks, London, Dubai. Everything came in its time.”