Shankar, a qualified chef in a family of Nepalese restaurateurs, worked for seven years at an Indonesian restaurant and added a Hospitality Management Diploma from TAFE to a Bachelor of Business degree from Tribhuvan University before taking the plunge into a venture of his own. It is a plunge that has paid off since 1998 with hard work and patience, a plunge that has brought numerous accolades and awards and made many friends for him and his family – wife Karen, daughter Tara, 23, and son Nicholas, 20. Shankar Shrestha is from Kathmandu and his wife Karen is from Melbourne. They met in 1981 in the Nepalese capital, where the travelling Karen was smitten by the young man in the heady atmosphere that pervades the Himalayas at 1400m above sea level. Shankar is one of those rare individuals possessed of an immense serenity, a humble family man of great inner strength, a ready warm smile and a genuine aura that seems to surround him wherever he goes.