Elegbede has worked at the three-Michelin-star restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York and at top restaurants French Laundry in California and Alinea in Chicago.
Otago Polytechnic Food Design Institute head and conference convener, Professor Richard Mitchell said Elegbede's food journey illustrates "The Human Touch'' which was the conference theme this year.
Elegbede's love for food comes from growing up in the home kitchen, and when his family moved to America where he spent his spare time cooking in his mother's Nigerian restaurant.
He completed a degree at the Culinary Institute of America before moving to New York to work at Eleven Madison Park.
He also worked with food designer Emilie Baltz, who was a keynote speaker at the last Dunedin conference in 2014.
Elegbede has now moved back to Lagos from New York to establish a restaurant to tell the story of Nigerian food.
Prof Mitchell is in negotiations with a second international guest and expects the final conference programme to be confirmed within the next two months.
New Zealand culinary great Lauraine Jacobs will be master of ceremonies at the June 29 to July 1 conference, which is expected to attract 300 delegates.
Dunedin-based Silver Fern Farms is once again the key conference supporter.
