Shehan Silva grew up in Bentota, on the west coast of Sri Lanka. Being a popular tourist destination, the seaside town’s many hotels would serve buffets laden with the local fresh seafood, but it was the impressive displays of desserts that captured Shehan’s attention. He admired the colour, precision and creativity in the desserts, inspiring him to train to become a pastry chef. As he describes, “I wanted to do something beautiful.”

​After completing his studies, he worked as a pastry chef in 5-star hotels in Sri Lanka and then Dubai. It was during his stint in Dubai, away from home for the first time, Shehan began to feel homesick, in particular for his mother’s cooking. He would call his mother, asking for her recipes for the food he had grown up eating. And so, she would teach him to cook curries via Skype.

In 2013 Shehan relocated to Australia for his partner’s studies. While continuing his career as a pastry chef and baker in Melbourne, he set about learning other areas of the kitchen and in 2019 he was hired as Chef de Partie at Many Little Bar & Dining in Red Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

​It was only a year or so until the pandemic hit, and the majority Sri Lankan kitchen team at Many Little found themselves ineligible for government support. In order to keep the team working, under Chef Gayan Pieris’ creative leadership, they began producing curries for takeaway. It would prove to be a turning point for the business, having discovered a local appetite for authentic Sri Lankan food. When they reopened post-lockdowns, it was with a refreshed modern Asian menu with a focus on the Sri Lankan cooking of Gayan and Silva’s mother country.

Shehan worked his way around the kitchen to become Sous Chef. Gayan had found a trustworthy right-hand man, and Shehan found a valued mentor in both the kitchen and in life.