MasterChef returns
The long-running series is back, and there’s plenty to play for as a new batch of contestants battle it out for the crown
IT'S HARD to remember a time when MasterChef wasn’t on our TV screens.
The reality show competition, which puts passionate home cooks through their paces in the ultimate test of culinary prowess, has won over generations of fans in the three decades since it first aired. Not to mention propelled many a budding chef to new career heights.
Couple its contestants’ success with the show’s no-frills approach, and it’s simply a recipe that works, say judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace, who have fronted the BBC show since its 2005 revival.
“We’re not scripted, we really care, and we work in a very safe, well looked-after environment,” Torode, 57, reasons. “We’ve never had wardrobe, we’ve never had make-up or anything like that, which has kept us real.
“So I think our survival is down to being allowed to be ourselves all the way through,” he adds. “Taking responsibility for who we are, and what we are, has made it a cool show.”
“We’re incredibly proud of it,” Wallace, 58, follows, referencing the series’ inter-generational appeal and “supportive nature”. “I regularly get messages from people that say, ‘This is the programme I watch with my children. This is our thing. We watch it together as a family’.”
It’s certainly loved by all. And with the nation cooking at home and trying out new recipes more than ever, the news of MasterChef ’s imminent 19th season comes as no surprise.
Over eight weeks, Torode and Wallace – who were recently made MBEs for their services to food and charity – will again preside as 45 talented home cooks battle it out to be crowned MasterChef Champion 2023.
From the initial Audition Round, whereby they must impress the judges with their Family Favourite Dish, to showing off their creativity and culinary repertoire to one of the country’s toughest food critics, William Sitwell, there’s plenty of fun – and drama – to come.
“I love that first round. It is like we’ve gone in for lunch and you learn a lot about them very quickly,” Wallace says, mimicking: “‘I wasn’t brought up with that food. Tell me more. I’m fascinated. Who did the cooking at home? Who taught you to cook?’ I love that, and it’s different from wherever around the globe.”
“That’s the thing about the programme, you do gauge different personalities, and there will be people at home who really relate to every single person,” muses Torode. “It also goes to show the broad range of cuisines in Britain right now – the ability for everybody to be really proud of their heritage is brilliant.”
The Australian-British chef and presenter recalls a new challenge this year, “whereby we got them to use things that they would normally throw away”.
“And there was one dish that we were both so blown away with,” Torode recalls, “that has got to do with a stale croissant which became the most extraordinary and beautiful dessert. What people did with things they’d usually put in the bin or whatever was absolutely fantastic!”
Another highlight is the return of MasterChef alumni, such as last year’s champion Eddie Scott and finalists Pookie Tredell and Radha Kaushal-Bolland, who help to judge the quarter-final ahead of the knockout stages.
“I love having them back!” says Wallace. “You get very fond of them during the competition, but you can’t get friendly with them, because it wouldn’t look right.
“So it’s a chance to really ask them what they thought. And I think they make for very good judges,” says the Londonborn presenter and entrepreneur. “We say [to the home cooks] before they go in, ‘If you want an example of what MasterChef can do for you, it’s waiting in the dining room’.”
“I mean, you look at Eddie now, let’s remember he was a Humber pilot, and he then went off and worked in restaurants – once with Gordon Ramsay,” says Torode. “And Pookie is now cooking on her boat, which she always dreamt of doing.
“It’s lovely to see these people living their dream and realising it,” he continues. “We saw Phil Vickery, who was England rugby champion, and he’s now got a restaurant. I said, ‘How you doing?’ He said, ‘I love it, I am living my life the way I want to live my life’. And that’s amazing.”
So what would the pair say to keen cooks at home who are considering applying for future series?
“(The message) to everybody out there is, if you are in doubt about applying for MasterChef, but you think you might want to, do it. Go on, take that first step,” encourages Torode.
“You never know what could happen. You never know what’s around the corner,” he finishes.
“Look, when Gregg and I met over a pork chop, at a tasting together for an audition for MasterChef, we had no idea we’d now be sitting here 19 years later! Who knows? Give it a go.”
MasterChef returns to BBC One on Monday, April 10 at 20.00