Palisa Anderson is a portion of a much larger whole that is her family business. Their first business Chat Thai was established 31 years in 1989, since then they have expanded the operations to 9 eateries, a grocery store, a travel agency and a farm.
Spending her childhood in and around restaurants gave her an appreciation for hospitality, a lifelong curiosity of food and ingredients and an easy rapport with people from all different walks of life.
After studying Political Science and Liberal Arts at the University of Sydney she travelled and worked extensively in Hong Kong, London, New York and Tokyo for 10 years before coming back to Sydney to re-join the family business much to the joy of her mother Amy, the family Matriarch.
Being one of the directors of the business, her role is varied from overseeing operations to being hands on with creating menus for each venue, to selecting varieties of heirloom open-pollinated herbs, fruits and vegetables to grow on her organic certified farm Boon Luck Farm Organics for the table at her own restaurants as well as other leading restaurants in Australia.
She is now immersed deeply in the growing of organic produce, land regeneration and wilding of NSW Northern River’s Australian landscape as a means to reverse and benefit the destructive growing methods of conventional agriculture.
In 2018, she was invited by Noma’s Rene Redzepi to Copenhagen to cook at MAD6 Symposium which has been a real highlight of her cooking career. It was with delight to be able to showcase Thai Immigrant cuisine to the world and how culinary evolution happens with migration.
In 2020, she has published her first book On Growing and is currently the host, producer and writer for the show ‘Water, Heart, Food’ on SBS food with an upcoming stint of guest host role for the 2021 season of ABC’s Gardening Australia.
She is passionate about every aspect of food and hospitality, and loves meeting challenges that a small family business faces.
