Masterchef host chef John Torode has admitted that he has never been to fellow judge Gregg Wallace's house - and Gregg has never been to visit John, despite the pair co-hosting MasterChef for the last 19 years.
John has revealed that when they first met the pair “got on” but were “work colleagues, and [have] always stayed work colleagues.”
John puts it bluntly: “I don’t go to the pub with him, we don’t go to each other’s houses - we just don’t do it.”
Desert Island Dishes podcast host Margie Nomura asked John if Gregg was a friend, he replied: "How do you define a friend? I think you define a friend of somebody if you’re in a ditch one day and you’re really in, you know, the cacker - you ring them up and you go ‘I need help’ - that’s a friend. Gregg would do that. So, he’s a friend. Don’t get me wrong."
John put down the lack of visits to each other's houses down to Gregg's 'OCD'. He said: "Well he says he’s CDO because he wants it in the right order. That’s one of his favourite jokes.
“But he wouldn’t know where to put me, if he came to my house he wouldn’t know what to do. You know, he’s got this behaviour thing that he does and he knows what to do, so you just let that go. It’s like the reacting into it thing, you just go, you know what, I'm not worried about that and let it go, it’s fine. It’s alright.”
John added: “You know, to get to 20 years as a partnership. I mean, he’s done better than both my marriages. And I’ve done better than his others as well, so that’s alright.”
John was speaking on the foodie podcast Desert Island Dishes, hosted by professional chef Margie Nomura. The podcast sees interesting people from the world of food and beyond reveal the seven dishes that have shaped their lives.
You can listen to the full episode here on Apple podcasts where John also discusses the ins and outs of his career and how him and Gregg ended up on MasterChef together.
Desert Island Dishes has recently charted #1 in Apple Podcast’s food category and this season Margie has welcomed guests including Twiggy, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Dan Keeling.
