Beyond curry: Melbourne chef couple win Gourmet Traveller’s Best New Talent

Indian-Australian chef couple Saavni Krishnan and Aditya Suresh have been named Best New Talent at the 2026 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards, earning national recognition for their contemporary approach to Indian food at Melbourne restaurant Saadi.

The pair, who are partners in life and in the kitchen, run Saadi in Melbourne’s CBD. Gourmet Traveller announced them as the 2026 winners on 17 August, praising the fresh ideas and accomplished cooking behind a restaurant that draws on diverse Indian traditions while making full use of Australian produce and techniques developed in leading local kitchens.

For Krishnan and Suresh, the award also carries broader significance. Speaking after the awards, they described the recognition as significant for their “modern Indian” cooking as first-generation migrants to Australia. Suresh put their ambition simply: they want to show diners that Indian food is more than just a bowl of curry.

Indian-Australian chef couple bringing a different view of Indian food

Krishnan grew up in Mumbai with a Punjabi mother and Tamil father, while Suresh’s family lived in different parts of India. Rather than building the restaurant around a single regional cuisine, the Indian-Australian chef couple draw on a much broader map of memories, family recipes and culinary traditions.

Saadi itself was not an overnight restaurant launch. The project spent years as a pop-up, appearing in Melbourne venues including Hope St Radio, Public Wine Shop, Arnold’s, and Sleepy’s while the couple continued working full-time. In 2025, they took over the former Sunda space on Punch Lane for a residency designed to test whether the pop-up could become a permanent restaurant. By September, Saadi had found its permanent home there.

The food has retained the curiosity that drew people to the earlier pop-ups.

Saadi’s menu changes with Melbourne’s seasons and uses produce from small local farms alongside distinctly Indian flavours, spices, pickles, ferments and chutneys. Gourmet Traveller highlighted dishes such as fermented idli topped with fire-grilled spiced carrots, a reworking of the western Indian dish salli boti, and barfi paired with buttermilk sorbet.

That philosophy extends beyond the plate. Saadi’s drinks list also uses South Asian flavours, with house-made ferments, shrubs and vinegars appearing in cocktails, while the restaurant’s pared-back Punch Lane setting keeps the focus firmly on the kitchen. The result is contemporary without trying to disguise where the food comes from.

The current menu also reaches into lesser-known regional traditions. One example is sundarkala, hand-rolled wheat noodles from Uttarakhand in northern India, served at Saadi with wild barramundi from the Northern Territory.

The approach is inventive, but the chefs have been careful not to treat Indian food merely as material for reinvention. Krishnan has previously explained that their process often begins with something traditional and builds outward without losing the core of the original dish. Family remains part of that process too: during Saadi’s development, the couple would send menus to their parents, drawing on recipes and memories before adapting them together.

Krishnan was already gaining recognition before Saadi became permanent. She was named Young Chef of the Year in The Age Good Food Guide in 2024, following work in Melbourne restaurants including Etta and Manzé.

This latest award, however, arrives at a particularly interesting moment for Australian dining. At the Gourmet Traveller ceremony, several winners spoke about migration and the role migrant communities have played in shaping the country’s restaurant culture. Saadi’s success sits naturally within that shift, but also pushes it further: Indian food is not being recognised simply because it is traditional or familiar, but because it is evolving confidently within contemporary Australian dining.

For Krishnan and Suresh, that evolution does not mean leaving Indian food behind. Saadi describes itself as “Indian food their way”, driven by Melbourne’s seasons but unmistakably connected to India.

Winning Best New Talent suggests Australia’s dining establishment is paying attention.