Minoli De Silva was born in Peradeniya, a small town just outside Kandy in the highlands of Sri Lanka.
The oldest of three girls, Minoli's family migrated to Melbourne, Australia when she was six years old. Growing up she was the only brown girl in an otherwise all white school in Strathmore. Minoli talks about her upbringing including the challenges conforming to the expectations of migrant parents.
After finishing school, Minoli eventually went onto study chemical engineering at RMIT and then spent a year in Thailand teaching English. She returned to Australia and began a career in engineering that led her to move to Darwin, but her true passion was cooking.
On the encouragement of friends , Minoli applied to be a contestant on Master Chef Season 13. She went on to do so well that she is now a celebrity chef with 26,000 Instagram followers.
Minoli talks about her time on Master Chef and the life lessons she learned. She also talks about cultural issues, travel, language and the joys of living in Darwin and of course, cooking.
This is Minoli's Territory Story.
