Some of Buddha Lo’s first, fondest memories of cooking involve walking to a lake near his childhood home in Port Douglas, a tropical small town in Australia that draws in tourists wanting to explore the Great Barrier Reef, to set up crab pots. Before going into his parents’ restaurant in the morning, he and his cousins would put the traps in the water. They’d return at night to collect their catch, steam them as they were, and have a dinner of fresh boiled crabs.
Growing up so close to the restaurant business, it’s not too surprising that Lo ended up becoming a chef himself. At 12 years old, his dad was showing him how to break down chicken and pork, steamroll fish, and teaching him the basics of Chinese cookery. By the time he was 14, he was cooking at a 5-star hotel. In his early 20s, he left Australia for London to work at the 3-star Michelin Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. Now, as executive chef at Marky’s Caviar and HUSO in New York City and founder of the private label caviar line Saint Urgeon via Marky’s Caviar, Lo is one of the food world’s top names to watch.
At 31, he’s also fresh off a Top Chef win—an impressive feat in itself, but it’s not just a regular one. He’s the only contestant to claim the title in back-to-back years and the first champion of Top Chef: World All Stars, a twist on the show in which all competitors were winners or runners-up of previous seasons.
Living in New York City now, though he’s quite far from home, Lo knows he’s where he’s meant to be.
“I don’t miss it at all,” he says about the slow pace of Port Douglas. “I grew up spending more than half my life there. I know that it’s always going to be there, so I don’t have any sort of regrets of not going back at the moment. I just want to really focus on what I love the most and what I want to do, and New York seems to be the place for that.”
Despite feeling content with not being in Australia anymore, he recognizes that growing up there and being part of a family in the food industry shaped the chef he is today.
“That’s the lucky thing about me—I didn’t grow up with that sort of culture where I’d be in the kitchen with grandma on a Sunday afternoon making a dish or something,” Lo says. “I was in there cooking when I was 12 years old with my dad and doing service, with my mom in the kitchen, my brother serving, and my dad next to me on the wok. There’s so many favorite dishes that we used to cook. My dad let me have freedom to cook things for family dinner at the end of the night, and we’d always try and make a special moment of it.”
From working in that kitchen and crab potting at the local lake to running an upscale caviar restaurant, Lo has come a long way. But his house rules really reflect those special dinners he spent with family growing up—it’s simply about unwinding, being together, and enjoying a humble (but delicious, obviously) home cooked meal.
Buddha Lo’s House Rules
When you go over to Lo’s for a dinner party or any sort of gathering, your only job is to sit back and relax—he knows what he’s doing.
NOAH FECKS | DESIGN: BETTER HOMES and GARDENS
Q: If you were to hang a list of rules in your home, what would they be?
One—don’t wear black. I have a pug, and pugs shed a lot of hair. So as much as I try to maintain it, you end up walking out of my house covered in it. [For those wondering, his pug’s name is Kroshka, which is Russian for “little crumb.”]
Two, if it’s a dinner party, don't bring anything. I’ve got you covered. However, if you must bring something, make it an ingredient: an olive oil or nice salt, not a full-on dish.
Q: What House Rules did you grow up with?
I think they’re all pretty basic—no shoes inside the house … We were not really great kids. A lot of, “No running around”—there was a lot of delicate stuff around the house. We were outdoors a lot and in a tropical environment, so there were a lot of flies, a lot of stuff like that. So obviously, making sure that the fly screen doors are shut. Something like that was very important for the house because mosquitoes are known to be there. And shutting your doors as well, because just in general—even though it’s a really safe town, like back in the day when we were there you could leave the door open and the garage door open, and literally nothing will happen—but the only problem is that sometimes we’d look outside the door, and there’d be a snake or something. So you’d have to make sure that they don’t try and come in.
You have to take your shoes off before you go [inside]—there’s always like a little separate compartment for your shoes—because there’s actually a toad called a cane toad that’ll jump into your shoes, and then they’ll sleep there for the night. And then you’d go the next day, and there’s a cane toad in your shoe. These sorts of things, different things that you never think [of]—they’re all pretty normal to me, but now looking back at it I go, “Wow.” It’s a pretty different set of rules and lifestyle.
Q: Do you have a cooking ritual when you’re preparing a meal for guests?
Whenever people come over, I decide on a theme, and then I really go for it. So if it’s Italian, I go all out—maybe there’s a focaccia, pasta, salad, Prosecco. I love to keep it in theme, and in my own way, it becomes my mini restaurant whenever I do it. I don’t actually like anyone bringing food over because that’s my time to start up my mini restaurants so I want to have control of it. But yeah, I do kind of go all out whenever we have the time, because when I do have people over they’re generally in the industry, and for us to have the same time off or be able to have time off together is very important. So I do like to make sure that it’s a very fun night.
Q: Do you have a favorite “theme” or type of cuisine you like to prepare?
Oh, it’s very hard. I guess because I do mostly French, I do love cooking Italian. And I do love cooking Chinese when I get the chance. My friend’s a very good Japanese chef, so he usually comes over and I tend not to cook Japanese when he’s there, but when he’s not, I’ll cook Japanese as well.
The sort of food that we cook is an experience, and you can’t go to the opera every night. But you’re definitely going to appreciate the opera when you go there. So there’s no point in having an opera in your house.
Q: When it comes to hosting, do you prefer a more casual meal, or a fancy sit-down atmosphere?
Definitely very casual. Very, very relaxed. And a lot of my friends that are in the industry are in the same sort of cooking style, and as much as people think that we guzzle down foie gras and caviar and champagne 24/7, we don’t—that’s something that we do as a career. But on off nights, we’re like everyone else. We love simple, hearty meals: Not too complicated and being able to eat that together.
The sort of food that we cook is an experience, and you can’t go to the opera every night. But you’re definitely going to appreciate the opera when you go there. So there’s no point in having an opera in your house.
Q: Do you prefer to have everyone out of the kitchen when you’re prepping or cleaning up? What are your thoughts on guests helping out?
We’re hospitality people, so it’s an “Absolutely not.” And I don't mind cleaning, because a lot of the job that we do is that we clean a lot—if you don’t know how to clean then you’re not really going to be a great chef. That’s how I started in the industry; I was cleaning dishes at my mom and dad’s restaurant, and I really don't mind doing it. So I have a lot of fun just being able to do everything. It’s in my blood, really. If you’re coming over to my house, you’re going to be looked after. Everything’s going to be there: the wine, the food, everything. You don’t need to bring anything. So I quite enjoy that aspect of doing that, because it’s just treating people you really care for.
Q: You’re going to become a dad soon—are you excited to cook for your kid? What will your House Rules be like once you’re a parent?
It’s gonna be super exciting. I can’t wait. I think they’re gonna have the best time eating a lot of food. We just came back from Thailand, and they already had an experience because my wife was eating all these different foods already. I think just us being good eaters ourselves, and that’s what’s important, and also learning a lot of different cultures and getting them exposed to different foods at a very young age. So I can’t wait for that to happen—being able to expose them to all these different cultures and flavors.
Life as a Chef
Q: What was it like growing up with your family owning a restaurant? How did it impact your approach to food, and do you think it influences your cooking style now?
Yeah, it influenced it a lot. When my dad was showing me how to cook, he had two things that he put first: the taste and the temperature. Everything else comes behind that, but those are the two things that you have to follow at the start. And I think that while my dishes may look very pretty and attractive on TV, I’m still using those fundamentals to this day. I would never do something just because it looks pretty. It has to have those two things as well.
I would never do something just because it looks pretty.
And the thing is with presentation and Chinese cookery—when you look at French cookery and you see a million ducks on a plate with, you know, parsley and mint and all this sort of stuff—Chinese cookery does take presentation very seriously as well. Something that people may look over is that the steam that you see coming out from the food after it’s been cooked, is very, very important. And that is presentation, seeing things that are that hot makes you go, “Oh, I already know that this dish is going to be hot, and it’s gonna be tasty.”
Q: Do you have a favorite Australian dish?
There’s a lot of Australian foods that we really enjoy eating. I think one of them will probably be the meat pie—it’s extraordinary. It’s a savory pie filled with ground meat, and you would usually have it with ketchup. It’s something that I grew up eating, probably every single Australian grows up eating, but you won’t find it anywhere in New York. A lot of that sort of food came through England and the British colonization, so that’s something that we’ve kept on since then, and it’s been a staple in Australian food.
Q: Have you always been competitive? What attracted you to a show like Top Chef?
I've actually been doing competitions for a while. But whether I’ve been competitive, like as a chef—I think I’m more competitive against myself than I am against anyone else. I see competitions as an opportunity to grow, not an opportunity to show how good you are. Throughout the whole of my career, [I’ve felt] competitions are certain things that push you.
Once there’s no one on top of you, there’s no one really to guide you or teach you, or make you learn. You have to guide yourself, push yourself, and go out there and try and learn yourself.
For example, when I was 14 years old, I got pushed into a competition. I’d never created a dish before, and that pushed me out of my comfort zone, to learn how to compose a dish. Throughout my career, this has been a thing where it’s been a learning opportunity. And then when you come on to something like Top Chef, I’m an executive chef, and there’s no one on top of me. So once there’s no one on top of you, there’s no one really to guide you or teach you, or make you learn. You have to guide yourself, push yourself, and go out there and try and learn yourself.
When I was an apprentice or cook in someone else’s kitchen, they'd go, “Okay, come over here, I’m gonna show you how to break down fish.” But no one’s gonna come and do that when you’re the executive chef. You have to learn and find other avenues to learn, so coming onto Top Chef, I was learning and coming up with all these different flavor profiles and dishes because I was pushed to cook for this sort of challenge. I’ve never cooked bánh xèo in my life, but I had to do that in 30 minutes and learn. And now I've got that out of my system. Now I know what I did wrong or how I can do better, and that pushed me out of my comfort zone. And now I know how to cook a bánh xèo.
NOAH FECKS | DESIGN: BETTER HOMES and GARDENS
Q: What are some misconceptions people have about being a professional chef?
I get misconceptions all the time, just with what I was doing on Top Chef. You have to always consider every single scoring element in terms of presentation taste, creativity, you know, and as much as it’s really nice to cook that steamed crab that I had with my cousins and my auntie and mom and my dad, and it’s so tasty and such a great memory—but is a steamed crab really going to get me through the next round? So you have to constantly question yourself like that. Sometimes when you get on TV for what you do for a living, it doesn’t exactly portray what you can do.
As a chef, I love to learn so many different dishes and cook so many different styles, but I have to cook according to what the challenge was on the show, or what my job is that I get employed for. So for example, I managed to get a job at a caviar restaurant, but that doesn’t mean that I grew up learning how to cook with caviar. I’m doing it because that’s what I get employed to do, and that is my challenge: I need to come up with multiple dishes that reflect and also highlight caviar. Does caviar define who I am, and that’s all I can do? Absolutely not. I love doing Italian food; I love cooking Spanish food—there’s so many different dishes that I love cooking in the world, whether it be rustic to fine dining.
Q: You’re a master at cooking under pressure—what’s your advice for keeping your cool in the kitchen?
I cook and prep a lot of things in advance; I make sure that I’m well organized. I don’t believe in overresting proteins, so for me, the more rest time a protein can have, the better. If you’re gonna do a big roast with beef or chicken, cook it all beforehand and just let it rest and then reheat it when the guests come in. Same thing with salads; I like to make sure that all the salads are ready, and I have a couple of the dressings on the side. Everything should really take about five to 10 minutes. In terms of fish, fish has to be done in what we like to call á la minute, which is on the minute, because fish cookery doesn’t take very long—but everything else should just be ready.
NOAH FECKS | DESIGN: BETTER HOMES and GARDENS
Q: I wouldn’t imagine that you do, but when you’re cooking for friends and family and people you’re close to, do you get more nervous than you do cooking for other professionals? Or is there a difference in any way?
No, I feel very confident in my cooking. I think that just comes with time—you just have to be very confident in your food, and that’s what I am. I’m very confident when people are coming over, serving up simple pasta or grilling meat or cooking seafood. These are the things that I really love to do, so it’s not nerves, it’s more excitement. In my day to day, I’m in the industry of making sure that all the prawns are peeled or the fish is scaled properly—so to have the chance to cook shrimp on the grill and not have to fully mean it—it’s beautiful, but it’s not the style that I’m doing in my restaurant currently. So you get to use those opportunities to cook in a way that you don’t get every day, because that’s not your everyday job.
Q: With being in these competitive and stressful atmospheres, do you find it difficult to just relax and cook a meal for yourself?
I always find time to relax. And for me, I’m a very sort of simple guy—if I can get into a nice atmosphere with some good music, I’m done. That’s relaxing for me. So I’m lucky that that’s not really hard to find—if you feel comfortable in your home and you put on some good music, that’s all I need, really.