In bad taste:

Manu Feildel tells why he finds the behaviour of some My Kitchen Rules contestants hard to swallow. Kerry Harvey reports.

My Kitchen Rules judge takes swipe at contestants.

My Kitchen Rules Australia judge Manu Feildel has no appetite for distasteful behaviour from contestants on the reality show.

“We thought we’d seen it all before, but this year people are pushing the boundaries even more,” says the French-born Aussie chef who co-judges the reality series with Pete Evans.

The ninth season of the ratings juggernaut made headlines when, in an unprecedented move, the producers fired an all-female team after an incident involving another team.

While Feildel did not comment on that particular altercation, he admits he had to step in when tempers frayed during production on this year’s series.

“I just needed to remind everyone what we were there for,” he says, “and it kind of got better after that.”

Feildel states he is there for the food – not the tantrums.

“My whole life is about food. Everything I do is planned around where I am going to have lunch and where am I going to have dinner and who is going to cook for me,” he says.

However, he also believes MKR would not be such a success without the drama the more controversial contestants bring to the show.

While some viewers claim to have switched off in recent years because of the nastiness exhibited by certain contestants, Feildel believes it is up to viewers to decide what to believe from the social media frenzy that surrounds the show.

“You have to read what you want and pick and choose what you believe or not,” he says. “You take what you want from it. It’s like running a restaurant. You can’t please everyone, unfortunately.

“We’ve still got a show that rates amazingly and we’ve been number one for four years.

“If people decide not to watch it for some reason, I can’t really answer for that. It’s like someone who comes to my restaurant for five years then suddenly says, ‘This food

is not as good as it used to be’. It’s a personal taste.”

He believes food – and the love of cooking – is still at the heart of My Kitchen Rules which, since it launched nine years ago, has been seen in 160 countries.

Local versions are also produced in several others, including the USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

The Kiwi version, also hosted by Manu Feildel and Pete Evans, will be back later this year. But it is a very different beast to its Australian parent.

Despite its shorter run and fewer contestants, the New Zealand version is a favourite with the Frenchman.

“It’s like cooking. It doesn’t have to be a 12-course degustation. A couple of courses can be as good as a long dinner,” he says.

The Australian version will, however, continue to be much longer.

The format, though, is an evolving recipe and this year there are changes, most of which are being kept under wraps.

“There’s only two groups instead of three this year,” Feildel reveals.

“For that reason the groups are bigger. Instead of six teams in each group, we’ve got eight teams in each.” The teams will take turns to transform an ordinary home into a supersized instant restaurant where they will plate up a three-course meal that is designed to impress the judges and their fellow contestants in the hope of avoiding a sudden-death cook-off and possible elimination. Those who make it through will then face the most intense location challenges and eliminations yet as they try to stay in the competition for the ultimate instant restaurant round, before the finalists battle it out in Kitchen HQ. Feildel says that this year’s contestants are a mixed bag. “There are some people who can really cook some amazing stuff, some people who are, I wouldn’t call it average, but who can cook but can’t go too much further,” he says. “And then, unfortunately, we’ve got people who think they can cook but they can’t. “It’s a little bit like when you go on a singing show and people think they can sing but they can’t.” Then there are those people who claim they can’t cook at all but are only there to support their partners. “That’s a beautiful love story and all,” the judge says, “but it’s probably not going to win the $250,000.”

“My whole life is about food. Everything I do is planned around where I am going to have lunch and where am I going to have dinner and who is going to cook for me.”

– Manu Feildel