After a three-month residency, Saadi has gone permanent on Punch Lane.
Chef couple Saavni Krishnan – the 2025 Age Good Food Guide Young Chef of the Year – and Aditya “Adi” Suresh both quit their full-time jobs to focus on a three-month residency at modern Southeast Asian diner Sunda, following three years of running Saadi events and pop-ups across Melbourne. Now, they’ve occupied the Punch Lane space permanently.
The venue remains part of the Halim Group stable, which also includes Aru and Antara. Front-of-house staff and mentoring will be provided, but Krishnan and Suresh have creative control over the menu. Sunda’s industrial fit-out has been retained, with some new interior flourishes, including a colourful artwork by Hiro Feliciano, who’s behind much of Saadi’s playful branding.
Saadi, a portmanteau of Saavni and Adi, not only blends their names but their respective Indian upbringings and their experience cooking in top Australian kitchens, including Etta, and Sydney fine diner Fred’s. Prior to this, Krishnan was sous chef at Manze in North Melbourne and Suresh was Gemini’s head chef in Coburg.
There is an $85 set dinner menu available plus an abridged $45 set lunch menu and small a la carte bar snack selection. New dishes will be added each season. The opening menu taps into a lot of family recipes. One snack, called achar, will use Krishnan’s grandmother’s pickling recipe on late-season celeriac, which will top a spiced cracker. Kadhi pakora involves fritters made with in-season vegetables served in a yoghurt-based sauce, while Loddon Valley lamb brisket is rolled, stuffed and cooked over charcoal for a kebab dish with bitter chicory and fermented citrus dressing.
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