Sandeep Pandit, 37, had no idea going into MasterChef Australia Season 11 – that his cooking on the show would earn him the tag ‘Spice Angel’. Though he did get eliminated, it wasn’t before the IT project manager created waves with his Smoked Lobster Masala – that he tells us was touted ‘dish of the season’.
And now, he is gearing up to start his own brand of spices, led by his version of the Kashmiri garam masala.
This is apart from a restaurant called Barbeque and Biryani, which is a larger project that he hopes to start in Melbourne and then, with collaborators expand to Bengaluru and Mumbai.
The past several months have been quite a rollercoaster ride for Pandit – from coaching housemates behind-the-scenes on how to spice their shellfish the Indian way to winning an immunity pin to a severe back ailment that eventually cost him his apron because he was in too much pain to cook.
For Pandit, however, the biggest highlight of the whole experience was getting his MasterChef apron.
“I will always thank the three judges for giving that moment to me. From that moment onwards that a lot of people will remember me, as well... All the three judges to me were great mentors. It shows in my demeanour because I started my journey in the MasterChef Kitchen by touching their feet and I ended it by their touching their feet.” MasterChef Australia, Season 11 premieres in India on September 16 at 9 pm on Star World.