Saavni Krishnan and Aditya Suresh win Best New Talent for 2026

One of the most exciting movements in Australian dining right now is the rise of regional Indian cooking and the ways it’s being cleverly fused with the local dining scene. Saadi, the first restaurant from cooking and life partners Saavni Krishnan and Aditya Suresh, is a lesson in just how thrilling it is when this fusion is created by people with explicit knowledge and experience from both sides of the equation.

Krishnan and Suresh don’t target a specific region of India. They grew up with influences from all over the country – Krishnan lived in Mumbai with her northern-raised mother and her father who was from the south, while Suresh’s family lived in various parts of India. Their mission? To combine those diverse influences with knowledge garnered from cooking in Australian kitchens like Manzé, Fred’s and G e mini.

Saadi's sundarkala wheat noodles with spit-roasted wild barramundi, green garlic oil and sesame chutney. — Saadi’s sundarkala wheat noodles with spit-roasted wild barramundi, green garlic oil and sesame chutney. (*Credit: Harvard Wang*)

Honing their craft through an increasingly renowned series of pop-ups in existing restaurants including Hope St Radio and Public Wine Shop, they set about testing their own culinary philosophy (“Indian food, our way – beyond curry”) and gauging the interest of the local crowd in what they were doing. Their consideration of seasons and interest in working with small producers – the use of ex-dairy goats from Meredith Dairy is a delicious standout – drew the attention of Adi Halim (Windsor Hotel, Aru) – who offered them the ex-Sunda space in Melbourne’s CBD, initially as a pop-up and then, from September last year, as a permanent home.

Their food at Saadi combines a lovely playfulness mixed with deft spicing and clean-lined flavours. Sticky-textured fermented and steamed idli are topped with fire-grilled and spiced carrots while their take on salli boti, a western Indian meat curry, sees it reinterpreted as a beef-carpaccio-like dish with a curry-based, blackened lime dressing and crisp-fried potato straws. They might team a traditional fudge-like barfi with a just-sour buttermilk sorbet or spit-roasted fish with a sesame chutney.

The minimalist Kerstin Thompson-designed space with its open kitchen and canteen-like seating is a great match with their approach as is the drinks list which puts their pickling, preserving and spicing skills to great use in cocktails like a dirty Martini with pickled green mango and a superb Marsala Negroni.

It’s a rare treat to eat in a restaurant that conjures up flavours and combinations you may never have stumbled across before. Krishnan and Suresh had runs on the board already, but the fresh ideas and expert palates they bring to Saadi’s tables make them worthy recipients of this year’s Best New Talent award.

Gourmet Traveller’s Best New Talent is presented by S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy.

Past winners of Gourmet Traveller’s Best New Talent award

2025: Ozge Kalvo, Olympus Dining, Sydney NSW
2024: Mischa Tropp, Toddy Shop, Melbourne VIC
2023: Ollie Wong-Hee, Bar Heather, Bryon Bay NSW
2022: Mug Chen and Chia Wu, Muni, Willunga SA
2021: Jung Eun Chae, Chae, Brunswick VIC
2020: Due to COVID-19, a Hospitality Honours List was introduced in lieu of Restaurant Awards
2019: Alanna Sapwell, Arc Dining, Brisbane QLD
2018: Ali Currey-Voumard, The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery, New Norfolk TAS
2017: Josh Niland, Saint Peter, Sydney NSW
2016: Thi Le, Anchovy, Melbourne VIC
2015: Lennox Hasie, Firedoor, Sydney NSW
2014: Scott Huggins and Emma McCaskill, Penfolds Magill Estate, Adelaide SA
2013: Sam Ward, El Público, Perth WA
2012: Alejandro Cancino, Urbane, Brisbane QLD
2011: Luke Burgess, Garagistes, Hobart TAS
2010: Matt Stone, Greenhouse, Perth WA
2009: Ryan Squires, The Buffalo Club, Brisbane QLD

Author Michael Harden GT State Editor and writer

Michael Harden worked in restaurants and bars in New York, Virginia, London, Tuscany and Melbourne for 15 years to support his writing, dining and travel habits. In a lucky turn of events, he now spends much of his time writing about eating, drinking and travelling. Based in Melbourne, he is the Victorian and Tasmanian editor for Gourmet Traveller and works as a freelance author, food and travel writer, restaurant critic and editor for publications such as Good Food and Broadsheet. He also holds the lofty title of Oceania Academy Chair for The World’s 50 Best Hotels, a role which, disappointingly, does not include robes. Michael has written 16 books, many of them food and drink-related, including a cultural history of the Melbourne hospitality scene called Melbourne: The Making of an Eating and Drinking Capital and Lygon Street a history of Melbourne’s original eat street. He is currently completing a novel that’s set, not all that surprisingly, in the restaurant industry.