This year’s series of My Kitchen Rules came to an end last night, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look at the children of the show’s co-host and judge, Pete Evans.

Pete was one of the founders of the famous Hugos Restaurant Group, which over the years won more than thirty awards, including Best Pizza in the World at the American Pizza Challenge in New York City.

Recently, he has stepped away from the restaurants because of his media commitments; he has hosted several cooking shows on television, and hosted Channel Seven cooking contest My Kitchen Rules since 2010. He has also published a line of cook books.

Pete has two daughters with his ex-partner, former competitive ski-er Astrid Ellinger:

Chilli (aged 8)

and

Indii (aged 6)

The story behind Chilli’s name is that she was born not too long after Apple Martin, daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. Apparently Pete and Astrid were very impressed with Apple’s food-related name, and felt that they also needed a unique food name for their child. After running through a list of foods-that-could-also-be-names (eg Cinnamon, Saffron), they went with Chilli because it sounded “fiery”.

Late last year, I saw a baby girl named Chilli in a birth notice, and there was also a baby entered in the 2012 Bonds Baby Search with Chilli as her middle name, so Pete and Astrid may have inspired other parents with their spicy name choice.