MasterChef Australia contestant Declan Cleary is on a mission. He wants to challenge the popular stereotype that Indian street food is “greasy and unhygienic.”
Alongside Sarah Todd, an honorary Indian and fan favourite in the reality cooking show, Cleary has savoured pani puri, vada pav, chole bhature, lamb seekh kebab, and misal pav, eating mostly at dhabas and roadside stalls.
The infamous Delhi Belly did not hit either of them during their eight-day visit to India.
“No health issues, no stomach issues, no unhygienic encounters,” Cleary said, while biting into a steaming hot idli over breakfast with ThePrint.
Tod and Cleary, who were participants in this season’s MasterChef Australia: Back to Win, are set to return to Australia after a whirlwind tour of Delhi and Mumbai.
“The image of Indian food being spicy and greasy isn’t correct. It’s misleading. It’s not spicy. Yes, there is heat, but it’s flavourful,” said Cleary.
Upon landing in India, Cleary dived into the country’s food scene with his tour guide and girlfriend Todd. The two met as rivals in the MasterChef kitchen earlier this year, but ended up cooking something a little more… romantic.
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Food love to partnership
Todd is no stranger to India. She has visited the country several times over the past decade and championed Indian culinary traditions — from cooking in a tandoor to using coal for a smoky flavour — on the MasterChef show. She has helped put several Indian dishes before a global audience, from Maharashtrian chicken curry to Kerala prawn curry to Goan crab xacuti — and ran a restaurant, Antares, in Goa for three years before a 2019 fire forced her to close its doors.
But this trip, she said, has been extra special. Watching Cleary being in awe of the street food scenes in Delhi and Mumbai made her fall in love with the country all over again.
Due to her long-standing popularity in India, many say she has been unofficially adopted. And Cleary has earned a new title: “India’s second jiju,” after Nick Jonas, the husband of Priyanka Chopra.
“When they called him that, I thought, how adorable. But honestly, for me, it meant even more. It brought tears to my eyes. Because it just shows how they have accepted me in the first place,” Todd said, her voice cracking slightly, cheeks flushed and eyes misty, before she broke into laughter.
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Chole bhature, papdi chaat and more
In one of his Instagram reels, Cleary is seen rubbing some oil on his hands. He grabs a ball of dough and slaps it onto his palm, flattening it before sending it flying into a pot of sizzling hot oil.
His little culinary adventure unfolded at the legendary Sita Ram Diwan Chand in East of Kailash—a spot that’s practically sacred for chole bhature lovers. After his bhature heroics, Cleary sat down with a plate and declared the dish a global treasure that the world needs to discover.
“I would pick chole bhature over everything. It’s just a special dish,” he said. “The belly is full. The heart is full. The mind is full. This one word ‘full’ describes my trip to India. It’s a dynamite of flavours.”
Chef Todd is a superfan of chole bhature too. In an old video, she confessed that after landing in Delhi at 6 am, she went straight to Sita Ram Diwan Chand for a plate of chole bhature with sweet lassi.
Pani puri and papdi chaat are also on her must-eat list.
“Both can become global dishes,” Todd said. “The way we have Taco Tuesdays, we can have Pani Puri Fridays.”
In Mumbai, the two visited Bademiya in Colaba, where they relished rumali roti and seekh kebabs, then demolished a butter garlic crab at Trishna and vada pav from Ladu Samrat.
Their search for “soul food” ended at the South Indian fast food centre Chaan Chavdaar, where they relished the misal – a bean sprout gravy, loaded with crispy and crunchy faasan, with lemon, fresh onion and coriander.
However, nothing could shake their breakfast loyalty for idli and dosa. After all, it’s Todd’s “favourite breakfast” in India. Meanwhile, Cleary was happy to get a break from eggs and bacon.
“Eggs and bacon can be eaten everywhere. But I have fallen in love with dosa,” he said. “I can’t wait to get back and make dosa at home. There could be a seafood dosa. What’s the limit? Nothing can stop me because I think dosa is such a great career.”
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Aloo gobhi and trip to India
Back in 2014, when Todd joined MasterChef Australia Season 6, she never imagined her path would lead to becoming a culinary influencer in India. But everything changed in the 14th episode, where she cooked aloo gobhi in the ‘Scraps to Riches’ challenge.
Within 24 hours, Todd gained 50,000 new followers on Instagram.
“I was stunned,” she recalled. That unexpected wave of love nudged her to pack her bags and head straight to India.
She hosted pop-ups in Delhi, Mumbai and Goa. By the time she boarded her flight home, she admitted she was emotionally overwhelmed.
“I had teary eyes,” Todd said. “I come from a small town in Queensland with just 2,000 people. Landing in India, it felt like I’d stepped into another world.”
She also described the hospitality of India as “rare”.
“People [here] literally take an entire day off just to show you around. That kind of generosity…you don’t find it easily elsewhere.”
Todd spoke about safety, saying she never felt unsafe travelling alone before. “Of course, I don’t travel alone anymore,” she said, looking at Cleary with a grin.
The couple said they would return in two weeks to explore the food scene of Bengaluru.
(Edited by Prashant)