When you hear ‘Johnny Alloo,’ you might be like many people in Ballarat who associate the name with a local cafe. But it stems far beyond recent years to the mid-nineteenth century. 

Johnny Alloo was the Anglicised name Chinese orphan, Chin Thun Lok took on when he came to Australia in about 1844, from a Hong Kong mission school, to work during a labour shortage. 

Having learnt to cook for the western palate on a sea captain’s property in New South Wales, he made the move to Ballarat in 1852 when he heard gold had been discovered, and set up a restaurant there.

Sociologist-turned-historian John Smyth has written a book about this man called Johnny Alloo of Ballarat notoriety, published by the local Xin Jin Shan Chinese Library.

“He set up a cook shop, a bit of a tent, right near the entrance of Eureka Stockade,” Smyth said. “He served English food.

“But the miners lost the Eureka lead… picked up and went over to gravel pits just near where St Pauls Church is, Bakery Hill.”

Alloo moved his restaurant to the east side of Main Road, between Bridge and Humffray Street, and this business was captured in two illustrations by artist, Samuel Thomas Gill.

“Gill probably agreed to draw the establishment for food and lodging, so that is immortalised,” Smyth said. “He was an important recorder of history.

“If anything is known about Alloo – there are no pictures or photographs of him – it’s those two lithographs on the inside and outside of the restaurant.”

Smyth said Alloo was only in Ballarat for a few years, but his time cooking on the goldfields was just the beginning of a fascinating life story.