Tearaway who gave up drugs... became Australia’ and s top TV chef
How one supremely talented but troubled young Scot managed to turn his life around – and go on to become a national treasure Down Under
BY any reasonable expectation, Jock Zonfrillo’s career in the kitchen would have ended decades ago when the apprentice chef used up every last drop of his bosses’ goodwill. He was just 15 years old and working in Ayrshire’s Turnberry Hotel, which had a misdemeanour book where names would be entered a maximum of three times before employment was terminated.
Zonfrillo’s name appeared 54 times. Once, he showed up for work two-and-a-half days late.
In his next job, in a Chester restaurant, he was sacked for swearing so loudly that the diners outside caught every word.
When he rocked up unannounced at the door of Marco Pierre White in the 1990s, he gave London’s chef of the moment his previous employer’s name as a reference.
When White called him he was told Zonfrillo was ‘a waste of space’. It probably did not help that the young Scot was both homeless and a heroin addict.
Yet, a quarter of a century on, he is now the chef of the moment – certainly as far as Australian viewers are concerned.
Covered in tattoos, the 43-year-old is a household name Down Under after appearing as a judge in the Australian version of MasterChef, which hit UK screens this month.
He has overcome two bouts of drug addiction and living on the streets in London to become one of Scotland’s most successful culinary exports, with a TV series to his name, his own restaurant in Adelaide and an army of female fans.
A guest appearance on MasterChef by singer Katy Perry, who flirted with him shamelessly, certainly helped that along.
So did the show’s grand finale in which he performed his judging duties in a kilt.
Then there was Zonfrillo’s reunion with fellow Scot Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. The pair last worked together in Ramsay’s Aubergine restaurant in London 24 years ago.
It has all added up to a ratings smash Down Under, with the finale becoming the most watched nonsports show of the year.
ZOnfRILLO, whose third wife, Lauren, is expecting his child next month, said: ‘It’s a funny thing, I’m half Italian and half Scottish, the only non-Australian in the three judges – I’m the immigrant but I’m proud.
‘I’d been a guest on the show a few times before and have been cooking on some of the challenges and I got a call last year asking me to throw my hat in the ring. I always loved the show and grew up watching it in Scotland, but it’s a very different show here in Australia now. I feel very privileged to be able to be part of the MasterChef franchise.’
Different it certainly is. Miss Perry took to calling him ‘Daddy’ on the show and uttered lewd double entendres as he fed her.
‘I had no idea,’ says Zonfrillo now. ‘It was brilliant when she was on the show. On MasterChef, none of us talk directly to the camera, but Katy Perry walked in and started immediately speaking to camera, and it was hilarious and we all rolled with it.
‘She’s got such a big personality and it was fantastic for the contestants, she came in and made it her own.’
A starring role in MasterChef Australia, which premiered in the UK on satellite channel W on August 3, may be the biggest coup so far in the Scot’s TV career – but it is just the latest stage of what has been an extraordinary journey.
Born in Glasgow, he grew up mostly in Ayr and left school at 15 with little in the way of qualifications.
He did, however, have experience of restaurant kitchens, working firstly as a dishwasher and later gaining an apprenticeship at Turnberry, long before present owner Donald Trump took it on.
Recognising a nascent talent, his bosses kept him on in spite of his multiple infractions.
He once said of the place: ‘It was a brutal introduction to the realities of kitchen life. It was army-like in its discipline: polished black shoes, the correct socks, constant abuse.
‘You have someone standing behind you, f ****** screaming at you because you have put your knife down with the blade facing out not in.’
It was in London, however, that the teenager saw his future back then. Despite his former boss’s less than glowing reference, he persuaded White to give him a trial and quickly won the star chef over.
Indeed, he was part of the restaurant team in London’s Knightsbridge that won a third Michelin star for White.
‘My time with him was very important and influential in both my career and life,’ said Zonfrillo. I have the utmost respect for him; he’s a father figure and a good friend.’
from there he went on to work with Ramsay at Aubergine, before taking the biggest leap of his life and moving to Australia 20 years ago.
It was the new start which allowed Zonfrillo to finally kick his drug addiction for good – and he has never looked back.
He has an award-winning restaurant, Orana, which champions native
ingredients he discovered through months spent in the Outback.
More importantly, perhaps, he says he has found the place where he feels he truly belongs.
Looking back, Zonfrillo says: ‘I don’t think I’d do anything different. I went through what I went through and I had to go through it.
‘Coming here was a clean break, and I’ve been able to keep that clean break more importantly, but I don’t think I’d be able to have done that had I not gone down the path I did.’
He says the months that he spent living in the Outback gave him time for ‘contemplating what I am doing with my life and finding a purpose which was bigger than cooking and what I’d previously filled my life with.’
He adds: ‘I found a cause which was greater than that and which managed to fill my heart with so much more than a fancy restaurant ever would.’
His visits to indigenous tribal communities provided the spark for a major Discovery Channel television series, Nomad Chef, six years ago. He also set up The Orana Foundation to help record and protect indigenous cooking – a drive which won him the prestigious Basque Culinary Prize two years ago.
And through his MasterChef appearances and resulting fame, he has been able to promote that cause.
He says: ‘It’s humbling and I’m very appreciative to have the opportunity to continue the story of the work we’ve done with indigenous ingredients, beaming it into every living room in Australia with the chance to change mindsets to appreciation and acknowledgement of indigenous people through food.
‘My intent was to bring to light this amazing culture and to find a way that every Australian could acknowledge that culture and connect to it.
‘Food is that leveller, and creating a platform through food would be the easiest way to change minds.’
His bush trips have been postponed as a result of the coronavirus crisis, but Zonfrillo says he is eager to get back out to meet his tribal friends as soon as it is safe.
Social distancing rules due to the pandemic have also kept his restaurant closed for the time being, so
Zonfrillo is sticking to television in the immediate future.
Next up will be filming for Australia’s Junior MasterChef.
AS for the grown-ups’ show which aired in the UK on Monday, he says: ‘It’s been amazing fun. It’s been a great time to have a show with a competitive spirit on a subject that everyone has been passionate about while in lockdown.
‘The contestants had a real passion to win the trophy, and it was stunning food all the way through the season.’
Naturally, Zonfrillo has only praise for his fellow judges, Melissa Leong and Andy Allen.
But how did he get along with his notoriously abrasive former employer Ramsay after all these years? Awkwardly, surely. He says: ‘He was there for the whole of the first week, and it was the first time we had stood in a kitchen together for 24 years.
‘I worked for him at the Aubergine when he had two Michelin stars in Chelsea. We spent a bit of time together before filming going, “Wow, you and I were very different people standing in a kitchen in very different circumstances and a different world”.
‘He’s changed a lot, I’ve changed a lot. He’s still a formidable talent in the kitchen and on television. We’re both very different people than we were a couple of decades ago.’
Only as an afterthought does the exteenage hothead of Turnberry say anything wounding about his fellow countryman who has made a TV career out of being unspeakably rude.
‘He is actually very polite,’ says Zonfrillo.