MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace and John Torode admit it is not only Gordon Ramsay’s culinary skills that make them jealous — his earning power is pretty tasty too.
The judges return to front the 18th series of Britain’s most popular cooking series on BBC1 next week.
The series will culminate in a final held at Ramsay’s Michelin-starred London restaurant.
John hailed 55-year-old Ramsay – who hosts the US version – as “probably the most famous chef in the world”, and admitted: “I think he gets paid very handsomely in America.
“It’s on a commercial channel. He has massive billboards all over LA, he’s got a big house there. He’s really, really famous. I think he’s very, very fine.”
As well as his culinary skills, Ramsay’s fiery temper has helped propel him to stardom and viewers could see him erupt in the new series.
John explained: “Gordon’s Gordon. He will do what he wants to do. We always work with great chefs and we’ve always had access to their kitchens. So Gordon is one of those.
“He’s formidable and exacting and that’s why he’s had three stars in Chelsea for over 20 years. For our guys to go to his kitchen to learn from that I think is wonderful.”
The two presenters recalled eating “a very special piece of chicken” at his restaurant. John said: “I remember Gregg just eating it and going, ‘Holy crikey! Pow!’”
Meanwhile Gregg advised contestants that if they want to go all the way, there are certain dishes that they’ve just about had enough of.
He warned: “If you keep having the same dish, you can get jaded. If everybody cooks scallops, now you’re very, very critical of the people that don’t get it absolutely right, because you’re seeing it over and over and over again. The same with freshly-made pasta. The same last year with lamb.
“It is a dangerous thing to do the same as everybody else. If you keep seeing the same dish, you’re going to be extra critical of one that falls short.”
John, 56, agrees: “The thing I find really annoying is a fondant potato. It is a beautiful thing if it’s done properly. I remember the chef at Quo Vadis used to do trays of potatoes. I reckon there was five kilos of butter in a tray and those potatoes were magical. It takes a really long time to be able to get something like that right.”
Gregg, 57, also warned against trying to be too wildly different, saying: “That’s terrifying. You have to go with what you know.”
John said: “There’s loads of stuff out there we’ve never seen. The world of food in this country is just amazing. Whether it be Somalian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mauritian, Australian, New Zealand – you can get everything. That needs to be celebrated because many places in the world don’t have that diversity.”
Both hosts applauded Brooklyn Beckham for his cookery efforts on Instagram.
Gregg said: “Cookery on social media is playing a very important role in food education. It’s no longer in our schools, sadly, but anybody who’s interested now can just go online and see a range of cookery styles from all over the world, and that’s got to be applauded and shouldn’t be sneered at.”
John added: “Anything which is demystifying food and making things not scary is absolutely brilliant.”
This year MasterChef has been tweaked with an audition round to allow more contestants to try out.
Each week the nine cooks start off by preparing a blind taste test for Gregg and John, which they eat in the all-new tasting room.
John said: “It keeps it really fresh and it keeps us fresh. This year we wanted a lot more people to come through the door. But, of course, with Covid, you can’t set up for nine in the studio we had. So we did it as an audition round and that gives us our 45 contestants.”
He doesn’t think the changes will be off-putting for viewers: “Gregg and I are the constants. Everything else is variable on MasterChef. The contestants are variable. The food’s variable. What happens on the plates is variable. But we’re the ones who make sure that everybody’s happy and placated and we’ll always be there.”
*MasterChef, Wednesday March 23, 8pm, BBC1
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