Somer Sivrioğlu is a Turkish chef, restaurateur and television programmer, known for his restaurants promoting Turkish cuisine in Australia and his jury membership in MasterChef Türkiye. He lived in Sydney for many years and continued his work between Türkiye and Australia.
He was born on May 25, 1971 in Istanbul. During his youth in his mother's restaurants in Istanbul and Bodrum, he learned both cuisine and management practically. In the mid-1990s, he moved to Australia for an MBA and worked as a manager in the food and beverage industry for a long time.
Restaurants in Sydney
In 2007, he opened his first restaurant, Efendy, in Sydney's Balmain district. Working with a menu based on regional recipes of Anatolia, the restaurant was open until 2021. In 2016, he opened his second restaurant, Anise, in Sydney's Barangaroo area. In 2015, he published the cookbook Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Cooking with journalist David Dale.
He took part in cooking programs broadcast on SBS channel in Australia, and appeared on Destination Flavor with MasterChef Australia champion Adam Liaw. He prepared a Turkish cooking program on SBS Radio and wrote a weekly column in Yeni Vatan newspaper for the Turkish community in Australia. In Türkiye, he presented the program Somer's Kitchen, which lasted two seasons.
MasterChef Türkiye and Istanbul
Since 2018, he has been among the jury members of MasterChef Türkiye and has been recognized by a wide audience in Türkiye. He was also on the jury team in MasterChef Junior, which was broadcast on Exxen in 2021. In 2022, he had a guest role as himself in the TV series Leyla ile Mecnun. In the same year, he opened a restaurant named Efendy in Istanbul.
In May 2022, one person died as a result of the collapse of the retaining wall at the location of this restaurant; In the lawsuit filed regarding the incident, Sivrioğlu was among the defendants who were sentenced to prison by the first instance court in 2024 for causing death by negligence.
Somer Sivrioğlu is known as one of the names who contributed to the promotion of Turkish cuisine as a contemporary restaurant cuisine abroad.