Reaching for Stars Is in Chef Buddha Lo’s DNA

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Chef Buddha Lo has built a career on skillful technique and precision. As the first back-to-back Top Chef winner—Season 19 in Houston and Season 20 in London and Paris, the latter of which was the franchise’s first World All-Stars edition—Lo proved he is as adept under the stress of television as he is in his own kitchen. In October 2025, just eight months after Huso opened in New York, the fine-dining restaurant earned a Michelin star. Lo was surprised by the timing, but not the outcome.

Because the Michelin Guide does not operate in his native Australia, Lo understood early on that pursuing that level of cuisine would require leaving home.

Born to a Hong Kong father and Malaysian mother, Lo’s appetite for culinary precision began long before television cameras or Michelin observers entered the picture. He was 12 when his father, Tze Kwong Lo, invited him into the kitchen to cook at Jade Inn, the family’s restaurant in Port Douglas, Australia. One memory remains fixed: watching his father flip a Chinese omelet in a single fluid motion. It’s a recollection that he replays in slow motion, over and over. It was the moment he decided to become a chef. 

At 17, he won a stage scholarship at a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Pauillac, a small wine region near Bordeaux in France. “I turned 18 while I was there,” Lo tells Observer. “I had already been working [there] for two months, in the fish section. For my birthday, they invited me to dine in the restaurant. It was an unforgettable experience.

“Coming from Australia, where Michelin does not operate, this was my first exposure to a Michelin-starred restaurant as a guest,” Lo explains. “It was everything I imagined it would be. The precision. The discipline. The elegance of service. The execution on the plate. The entire experience felt intentional and deeply respectful of the craft.”

He returned home after his time staging at Pauillac, and at just 19, he became head chef at the now-closed Hare & Grace in Australia. He went on to work under Clare Smyth, who was then chef patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London; he then staged across Europe before eventually joining Eleven Madison Park in New York. Each kitchen reinforced the same lesson: Precision is not just about aesthetic flourishes—it is instrumental for operational discipline.

Now 34, the majority of his professional career has been in Michelin-starred and renowned establishments, which explains his drive and very high expectations. The Michelin-star blueprint has become a part of his culinary DNA. It’s a standard he has internalized.

That discipline found its most personal expression in 2019, when Lo joined the luxury food purveyor Marky’s Caviar, where he was given the freedom to create Huso, a 12-seat tasting counter inside Marky’s Madison Avenue location. Named for “Huso huso,” the scientific genus of Beluga sturgeon that produces prized caviar, Lo’s new concept centered on refined, seasonal offerings—truffles, caviar and champagne—all executed without a full kitchen. As if a whisper of good things to come, Huso received a Michelin Plate in 2020-2021.

In 2025, Marky’s Caviar and Huso moved to Tribeca, and the team’s sense of luxury in every form—space, food and decor—became a clear game changer. Less than a year after the move, Huso received its coveted Michelin star. “The restaurant as it is now is what I’ve always wanted,” Lo says.

Walking into the Tribeca space, guests glide past the deep blue of Marky’s Caviar and into the light, airy expanse of Huso. Vaulted ceilings, creamy white walls, tablecloths and contemporary art hint at the grandeur embedded in the dining experience. Chef Lo says that although they were difficult to find, he was thrilled when the team acquired two Keith Haring pieces for the walls. He’d always loved the Keith Haring mural that covers the exterior of a school wall in Melbourne, which still stands today.

One wall in Huso is taken over by a custom installation, “Explosion,” by London artist Valéria Nascimento, featuring 200 delicate porcelain pieces that create a textured, monochromatic statement. At once dramatic and elegant, the scene captures the precision and artistry Lo displays on every plate.

The winter tasting menu reads as calibration rather than indulgence. The opening course—bluefin tuna layered with smoked sturgeon and caviar—establishes salinity as structural, rather than ornamental. Throughout the progression, Lo’s classical technique highlights luxury ingredients. For example, an egg with lobster and hollandaise nods directly to the French canon, but the sauce is poured with restraint, and the richness of the dish is tempered rather than overwrought.

Even the heavier courses favor control over spectacle. Squab with squash and fermented black bean shows depth without excess; the beef paired with Périgord truffle relies on reduction and timing, not abundance. The through line is precision. Lo cooks like a chef trained to eliminate errors. Before appearing on Top Chef the first time, Lo spent a great deal of time not just rewatching previous seasons, but studying the errors that got chefs eliminated. In addition to keeping Huso running at the highest level and reveling in the restaurant’s latest Michelin recognition, Lo continues to manifest more recognition, more victories, more stars. “We want to go above and beyond,” he says. 

On March 4, Lo will return to television after a three-year hiatus from competition. America’s Culinary Cup is an invitation-only challenge with the country’s most decorated chefs vying for $1 million, hosted by Padma Lakshmi. Lo is among 16 chefs chosen, including Kim Alter of Nightbird in San Francisco; Beverly Kim of Parachute in Chicago; and fellow New York chef Sol Han of LittleMad. The chefs will take on an array of food challenges, from feats of creativity and endurance to presentation and leadership.

In the midst of expanding his professional portfolio, Lo’s personal life has also evolved. He and his wife, former Eleven Madison Park pastry sous chef Rebekah Pedler, welcomed twins in 2023, two years before opening the Tribeca iteration of Huso.

Two days before Lo received the first call from Top Chef in 2022, his father died. It was his father who first opened Lo’s eyes to the culinary world and the desire for excellence through food. When Lo ultimately won that season, he dedicated the victory to him. The loss of his father reframed the stakes of competition and recognition for him, but not the pursuit itself. 

The lessons impressed upon him—from his father’s kitchen in Australia to Michelin-starred dining rooms around the world—remain a part of his daily quest for distinction: For Lo, the pursuit is an operating principle. “It’s been my game my whole life,” he says. It’s a philosophy he’ll no doubt apply to whatever benchmark comes next.