MasterChef Sashi Cheliah is out and ready to open his first international restaurant and release a cookbook

He may have been eliminated from MasterChef, but there’s plenty cooking for Adelaide’s Sashi Cheliah – including a new restaurant and cookbook.

Adelaide’s Sashi Cheliah still has plenty of things cooking despite being eliminated from the MasterChef kitchen on Sunday night.

The Season 10 winner will this month fly to India to open his first international restaurant, The Pandan Club, and in August will release his cookbook, Kampong Boy.

“We had a speed-breaker for two years, and once borders opened, we started everything one after another,” said Cheliah, who was the sixth contestant eliminated from this year’s Fans & Faves instalment of the cooking show.

It’s been a turbulent two years for Singaporean-born Cheliah, who was caught in the crossfires of the pandemic just months after opening his city restaurant, Gaja by Sashi. He admits it forced him to question his future in the industry.

“At one moment it (the restriction) was one person per 8sq m, and that was 10 people for the size of my restaurant, which financially was not possible to run,” he said. “We ended up closing for three months.

“It was tough. I put everything on the line when I started the restaurant, but the passion and the support from my family, especially my wife, really motivated me.”

Sashi Cheliah on MasterChef.

Sashi Cheliah and Michael Weldon, on MasterChef.

The restaurant now is “going fantastic”, with an influx of interstate visitors, he said.

Returning to the MasterChef kitchen wasn’t about winning – again – but rather about challenging himself. In the end, it was a fish curry with fermented dosa that eliminated Cheliah – a dish he makes “every second day” at home. Fiddling with a sticky dosa in a less than ideal pan caused him to neglect the curry, which burnt during the time challenge.

“I’m not upset about it,” he said. “The reason I went into the competition was to push myself. I believe in taking chances because if you don’t try, you don’t know.”

Cheliah’s 94-seat Pandan Club, “a more refined” version of his Gaja, will open in Chennai at the end of June.