Victoria Age: 34 Occupation: Stay At Home Dad

As a child, Loki’s grandmother used to get an abundance of seafood including crabs delivered regularly to their home in Chennai, India. Cooking alongside his grandmother, Loki remembers crab masala and preparing prawns as the flavours and fragrances of his childhood.

Born in Mysore but relocating to Chennai as his father worked for the railways, Loki says culture and food were the core ingredients of his childhood. Meals were hot and peppery, full of smells of coriander and routinely influenced by street food. Family meals were often large affairs as his 13 cousins lived nearby and the family would celebrate regularly with food festivals in the backyard.

In early 2004, after completing a computing degree in Chennai, Loki moved to the Gold Coast to continue his studies. It was in 2014 while visiting his sister in Florida that he decided on a whim to attend a yoga retreat. It was there he met his now wife, Ishani. Loki describes his step-son Indryaan (Indy), aged six, as his best friend and the biggest turning point in his life, crediting the pair with convincing him to follow his culinary dreams and apply for MasterChef Australia in 2018.

Together with his wife, Loki loves dining at Melbourne restaurant Ezard for its amazing vegetarian degustation, Cumulus Inc for its simplicity, and Chin for its flare.

Describing his signature dish as a prawn stir-fry and biriyani, Loki says his greatest kitchen strengths are his knife skills and his ability to blend spices in the kitchen.

One day he hopes to operate a children’s cooking school, a therapeutic and imaginative environment focussed on street foods and street food flavours. When he is not cooking he loves hanging out with Indy, trying new restaurants with Ishani and taking photographs.