MasterChef's Sashi Cheliah reveals surprising way he prepared for the show

Sashi Cheliah is arguably one of the most successful contestants to come out of MasterChef Australia, having opened two restaurants, published a cookbook and released his own line of meal kits following his win in 2018.

The fan-favourite chef and former prison officer has now opened up to Yahoo Lifestyle about his enormous success, why he’s so grateful for the show, and the surprising way he prepared for season 10.

Why did you apply for MasterChef?

“I’m pretty comfortable in two things - one is law enforcement and the other one is cooking because that's what I really enjoy doing throughout my life,” he details. “Working for the government for 20 years, being an employee, I was reaching a stage where, ‘Okay, this is enough, let’s look at something else in life and what else I can do other than law enforcement’.

“My wife is the reason why I applied for the show. She's a very big fan and she diligently watched every episode, every season. We started watching MasterChef from 2012 onwards when we migrated to Australia [from Singapore].

“When I applied and I got through to the judges audition, I had about one month [to prepare], so I had to binge-watch a lot of episodes. After work I came home, I practised and I binge-watched two or three episodes before I went to bed. So I covered season eight and season nine within a month just to know how the whole show works.”

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What was your experience like on season 10?

“Obviously, I wasn’t able to learn everything within that one month, so it was a learning process,” he shares. “I went in with a basic understanding of the competition and I had a basic understanding of how to cook certain dishes.

“I have my strengths, which is pretty much Asian, Malaysian, Indian cuisine, but that is not enough to be in a competition of that scale. I needed to understand other cuisines, other techniques, and desserts. So there were plenty of things that needed to be learned and I was lucky enough that I managed to stay in the competition until the end, which gave me the time to learn as I was progressing in the competition.

“Pretty early in the competition, I realised that I have a very good potential of going very far. I was not thinking about winning the competition, I just wanted to be there for as long as possible.”

How did you navigate life after the show?

“It was pretty overwhelming,” he admits. “Because MasterChef Australia is not only popular in Australia, it's global. They have about 50 other countries watching the show and there's a very strong following overseas in India, South Africa and the UK.

“So when I started travelling the world, I realised there’s a lot of potential everywhere and there were a lot of proposals coming through and I had to filter that, making sure that I was making the right decision. At the same time, I had a dream of starting my own business and I wanted to run my own restaurant.

“So the first year was a challenge because being new to the industry, I needed to make a lot of decisions based on my own life experience pretty much. So I made a lot of mistakes and I made a lot of good decisions, but I learned as I was progressing in the whole thing. It was a journey.”

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What was your experience like on season 14?

“The reason why I went back was pretty much because of Covid,” he explains. “We started the restaurant with very big hype, we were doing extremely well, it was summer, it was buzzing, it was a very good start. But everything went pear-shaped in Covid and everything went downhill.

“I was becoming more of a business owner [than a chef]. I was losing my creativity. And when MasterChef approached me, I thought, ‘Okay, this will be a good time. Let's go back to where it all started. Let's go back there, let’s rekindle my creativity, my passion for food. Let's go back and see why I wanted to start this journey from the beginning’.

“It was more stressful because the first time there were less expectations and I didn’t have to prove anything. If I lost I could go back to my job… But the second time around, since day one, everybody knows you're a winner, and everyone knows that you can cook well, so the expectation is higher. And running multiple businesses and doing the show, I had a lot on my plate. It was tough, tougher than the first one.”

What are you most thankful to MasterChef for?

“I think it's the exposure,” he says. “If I'd never gone onto MasterChef, I would have still maybe started a small restaurant in Adelaide or a café, but I wouldn't have got this kind of exposure.

"What chefs do for 10, 15 years to achieve in terms of publicity, marketing and getting the kind of accreditation, I was able to get it within a year. But it wasn't easy, because this industry is a very tough industry. I won MasterChef, but that doesn't mean that I will be accepted into the industry because people spend 10 to 12 years perfecting the craft. And just because I won a competition, that doesn't mean that I will earn that accreditation.

“So it took me one year or maybe almost two years until I got my first award for the restaurant… It took me some time to let people know that, yes, this guy is not only a TV chef, he can cook good decent food for restaurants.”

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