Buddha Lo’s House Rules—Don’t Wear Black and Just Bring Yourself

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