Wine direction for the pass, the cellar, and every table between.

Stefan's career began on the floor of the Saxon Boutique Hotel & Villas in Johannesburg, where Michelin-calibre service standards and daily cellar discipline set the tone for everything that followed. A move to London in 2015 led to sommelier and head sommelier roles across some of the city's most respected wine-forward restaurants — including Pollen Street Social, City Social, and the Biltmore Hotel — building and running lists, managing supplier relationships, and training service teams from the ground up.

Since 2023, Stefan has served as Head Sommelier at Core by Clare Smyth, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant, overseeing wine purchasing, list curation, cost and margin control, and the training of a multi-sommelier team. Across his career he has also opened new sites, built wine programmes from scratch, and personally mentored several junior sommeliers through their Court of Master Sommeliers Introductory and Certified examinations.

Cellar Door Consulting was founded to bring that same level of direction — the kind usually reserved for Michelin-starred dining rooms — to independent restaurants, private collectors, and event hosts across London and the South East, without the conflicts of interest that come from supplier-funded advice.