How a Coimbatore chef won hearts for his cooking in Australia

Merwin Joshua is still not over the excitement of his latest achievement as he speaks from Adelaide through a Zoom call. Having recently won the award for the Best Indian Restaurant in South Australia at the 2025 Restaurant and Catering Awards for Excellence, the Coimbatore native’s eagerness to share his success with the town he grew up in is palpable. 

In fact, he claims, it was the days he spent savouring various delicacies from pushcarts around VOC park that sparked his love for cooking. “They taught me that there is more to food than just taste; that there’s emotion and memory as well as the toil of several people behind it. More importantly, I learnt that great food needn’t be born only in fancy kitchens,” he adds.

By naming his restaurant The Logical Indian, Merwin was making it clear that the cuisine he was serving was true to its roots. 
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Merwin, who graduated in Catering and Hotel Management in 1999, opened The Logical Indian in Adelaide in 2015, and was shortlisted for the award for five consecutive years beginning 2019. It was in the sixth attempt that the restaurant, which popularised cuisine from the Coromandel Coast in Adelaide, finally bagged the prize. It felt like long overdue recognition.

When asked about the curious choice of name for the restaurant, Merwin responds, “Restaurants here that serve South Indian cuisine are usually modified to suit local tastes: they hardly represent the true flavour of our dishes. Also unlike North Indian cuisine, which relies largely on dry herbs, South Indian cuisine depends a lot more on fresh ingredients, which are a challenge to source.” 

By naming his restaurant The Logical Indian, Merwin was making it clear that the cuisine he was serving was true to its roots. And he opted to narrow down to coastal Andhra and Tamil Nadu, apart from the occasional Kerala dish added in. And, as a reminder of his Coimbatore roots, the restaurant also offers a dish called ‘Kovai mushroom’, a tribute to the kaalan that he often enjoyed.

Running a business in a foreign country comes with its own challenges, but not for Merwin, who had followed up his graduation with an MBA at Charles Sturt University and had previously owned a restaurant in Malaysia, which he ran for three years. “I also took up brief stints as programme manager and consultant in the oil and gas industry, all of which equipped me with the knowhow to build an enterprise from the ground up,” he adds.

As for the ingredients, he has them freshly procured. Apart from sourcing locally-made produce, Merwin also imported what he couldn’t get locally, like coconuts, which came from Thailand. Any apprehensions about appealing to customers who are not of South Indian origin soon proved wrong. While the restaurant was quick to find a following among the sizable Indian population in Adelaide, Australians weren’t far behind. And having worked in hotels like The Oberoi, Merwin does not hesitate to take over the kitchen himself when the situation calls for it.

Now, with acclaim and recognition coming in, one would assume that Merwin feels he has finally made it, except he doesn’t. “It’s one thing to work your way to the top, another to retain your position,” he says, citing challenges such as ensuring consistency in quality of service. But the win has given him confidence to expand his operations, apart from the two branches he operates in Adelaide. “The restaurant business aside, we’re also planning to offer ready-to-eat packaged foods for sale in supermarkets across Adelaide,” he concludes.