West Bengal’s Suraj Thapa earned a spot in the grand finale of MasterChef India 2023 at the end of a thrilling semi-final episode aired on SonyLIV on December 7.

A 28-year-old BSc graduate from the small town of Chalsa in North Bengal, Suraj got interested in cooking during the pandemic lockdown.

At the finale to be aired on SonyLIV tonight, Suraj will fight it out with three other finalists — Nambie Jessica S. Marak, Rukhsaar Sayeed and Mohammed Aashiq.

In the semi-final challenge, the Top 4 contestants had to recreate a signature dish by guest judge chef Manish Mehrotra. The twist was that they were not given any recipe and had to prepare the dish from scratch based on an image shared by chef Manish.

At the end of the task, judges Vikas Khanna, Pooja Dhingra and Ranveer Brar announced that there were negligible differences between the dishes prepared by the four contestants and thus all four of them would qualify for the grand finale.

Of the other three finalists, Nambie Jessica S. Marak is a 30-year-old school principal from Upper Rangsa, Meghalaya, who dreams of taking Northeastern cuisine to a global level.

Rukhsaar Sayeed is a 33-year-old entrepreneur from Srinagar who holds a Ph.D degree in food technology. The mother of two aspires to venture into the food business.

Mohammed Aashiq, a 24-year-old juice stall owner from Mangalore, has won a cooking contest on television earlier. Aashiq, who has a YouTube channel with his own cooking show, aims to open a restaurant in future.

The grand finale of MasterChef India 2023 will stream on SonyLIV at 8pm tonight.