It was just after seven o'clock on a Tuesday night in Ballarat, when Abdullah Siddiqi entered the Ballarat Curry House, a bottle of bourbon in hand, to eat what would be his last meal.

"What did he order?" the restaurant's former chef, Hari Dhakal, was asked in the Victorian Supreme Court this week.

As if eighteen months hadn't passed, the Nepali man replied with complete confidence: "Chicken 65 and a shish kebab."

Mr Siddiqi was the restaurant's only customer, and when the Pakistani man arrived the waitress joked that the 'doctor's husband' was here, and he was drunk.

It was the first time the 38 year-old had come without his wife.

The meal was uneventfully prepared, and with the German dishwasher, Stefan, sent home sick, the chef, the waitress and the customer were left alone in the establishment.

As the IT worker waited for his entree at a table near the corner, he spoke over the phone with an old friend; as he chatted, his meal was served and he was heard through the phone thanking the waitress.

Shortly after he hung up, Abdullah Siddiqi sent a text to the friend, Nazim — a freight worker — a reminder to come past his place on the weekend: "No excuses," he wrote.

But minutes later the 38-year-old would be dead, bleeding profusely from multiple stab wounds in the neck and head, on the floor of the kitchen where his meal had been prepared.

The Ballarat Curry House Indian restaurant, where a chef fatally stabbed a customer. ( Supplied: Supreme Court of Victoria )

Victim was 'distressed' prior to stabbing

About half an hour earlier, a passerby checking the menu on the window outside had noticed the sole patron, who was furtively rubbing his head with his hands, apparently in distress.

The stranger took note of the man's Jim Beam bottle on the table, then flipped a coin with his girlfriend; it chose the Crazy Asian take away two doors down.

When the chef returned from his toilet break the customer, now visibly drunk, was addressing the waitress at the counter, Sonia Kumari.

Ms Kumari, who gave evidence in court from Bangalore, India, via video-link and through an interpreter, said Mr Siddiqi made her nervous when he drunkenly approached the counter wanting more entrees.

"If you don't like the food, you don't need to pay," Dhakal said, and gestured to the door.

"We can't serve you."

Mr Siddiqi became angry, with Dhakal and Ms Kumari both giving evidence that the IT worker had questioned the chef's right to tell the customer what to do, called him a 'motherf*****' and a 'sisterf*****' in Hindi, and then swung at him.

Dhakal told the waitress to call the police.

"He became animal," he told the court.

Prosecutors have tried to piece together what happened next with difficulty, but it is understood that after a struggle beside the counter, the chef and the customer ended up alone in the kitchen.

A counter inside the Ballarat Curry House, where a chef fatally stabbed a customer. ( Supplied: Supreme Court of Victoria )

Via his interpreter Dhakal told the court that he was trembling, that Mr Siddiqi had threatened to kill him, and that he felt weak.

"I could feel my heart thumping and no strength in my body," he said.

"This man is my customer, customer is 'god' in the business.

"I'm not there for the fight."

Nobody witnessed Dhakal grab his kitchen knife and swipe at the customer's neck.

Chef walked to police station to declare: 'I've killed someone'

When it was all over, there were 15 bloodstains across the kitchen benchtop, with more randomly distributed around the body.

Mr Siddiqi's larynx had been severed and he had up to 17 stab wounds.

As the customer lay dead on the floor, Dhakal wrapped the knife in a plastic bag and marched down to the police station — hurrying, he told the court, so as not to frighten people in the street with the blood on his clothes.

"I've killed someone," he told the junior constable on night duty.

"This is the knife."

A shelf at the Ballarat Curry House restaurant showing blood spatters after a fatal stabbing. ( Supplied: Supreme Court of Victoria )

In his police interview, Dhakal said he ended up in the kitchen, boxed in, after being repeatedly pushed by the customer, but in court the former chef contradicted that evidence, and said in fact he tried to run out of the restaurant and took a wrong turn.

"Why did you kill him?" he was asked separately by the prosecutor, the defence counsel and Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry.

"I don't know," replied the former chef.

"My body, I didn't control it."

Blood stains on the floor of the Ballarat Curry House kitchen after a fatal stabbing. ( Supplied: Supreme Court of Victoria )

Jury delivers its verdict in hours

It took a Victorian Supreme Court jury less than four hours to decide Dhakal was guilty of the October 25, 2016 murder, with the verdict delivered at midday Wednesday.

After hearing closing addresses from the prosecution and defence on Tuesday, the jury was instructed if it did not believe the former chef was guilty of murder, an alternative charge of manslaughter could be considered.

However, its members were satisfied the events of that evening made Dhakal guilty of the murder of Mr Siddiqi.

He will be sentenced on June 1.