Photograph: Patch Dolan/BBC/Shine TV
So. Farewell then, John Torode. You were the co-presenter of MasterChef and Celebrity MasterChef. Until you weren’t. But first, and finally, there is this: the second of two festive specials in which we watch the Australian peering at potatoes while pretending we don’t know the BBC chose not to renew his contract in July after an allegation against him using “an extremely offensive racist term” was upheld. (Torode denies the allegations and claims to have “no recollection” of the incident).
So, let’s scurry past the indignities (the two unaired Christmas specials from 2024; the summer of “MASTERCHEF CHAOS” headlines; the aired-but-with-two-contestants-edited-out-at-their-request series of MasterChef; Gregg Wallace) and remember him this way: staring blankly in linen as a panicking former credit controller from Hackney drops half a lobster on the studio floor.
“Two courses. Two-and-a-half hours. Ladies and gentlemen,” Torode announces, his arms wide. “Let’s cook.”
And we’re off. MasterChef Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions finds four previous MasterChef winners competing to secure the “ultimate” titular accolade and a trophy in the form of a golden frying pan nailed to a plinth (good luck trying to fit it in the dishwasher after you’ve burned your sausage frittata, Champion of Champions).
They are Brin Pirathapan (who originally triumphed in 2024), Thomas Frake (2020), Natalie Coleman (2013) and Chariya Khattiyot (2023). Remember them? Probably not. Thanks to the incessant churn of the industrial TV contestant complex, their names, “journeys” and duck parfaits are – to this viewer at least – long lost to the sands of time. Torode and co-host Grace Dent might as well be asking Amenhotep III to knock together a welsh rarebit. Still, they’re a cheery bunch, the special’s festive remit favouring the can-do chuckler type over the showboating berk. Their first task? To create a dish “fit for royalty!” Chariya sets to work on a “queen bee golden hive dessert” comprising orange liqueur gel, dark tempered chocolate, honey bee-shaped milk chocolate tuile and a building site of Crunchie-adjacent honeycomb rubble.
“Regal,” says guest judge Tom Parker Bowles, approvingly. “Hee-hee,” replies Chariya, who is dressed, for reasons that are never entirely made clear, as Widow Twankey.
Lobster-dropping Natalie, meanwhile, rustles up a lamb cannon with “artichoke four ways”, anchovy and garlic cream, and a port and redcurrant sauce. “Don’t wanna make myself look like a muppet,” she honks, putting the finishing touches to a meatball that looks like a small, bald man in a hairnet. A Greggling, if you will.
Former vet Brin presents us with a spectacular, Yellow Submarine-themed slab of halibut, his Lord Kitchener moustache flapping victoriously over the accompanying champagne and saffron beurre blanc. Brin is delightful company, but we must draw a firm veil over his habit of speaking about Brin in the third person. (“We’re back to the bold, slap-you-round-the-face flavours of Brin!” he says, and oh, the moustache wilts like spinach).
While the chefs set about their stoves, we find our thoughts wandering. First to Dent, whose sparky interactions with the contestants are everything that Torode’s (flat, detached) and Wallace’s (a dog barking at a trifle through a fence) are/were not. She’s a joy; her unaffected enthusiasm providing a seamless, sequined bridge between Old MasterChef (bloated, Gregg-y) and New MasterChef (funny, involved, unlikely to be sacked following multiple allegations of aggravated bellendry).
Torode, meanwhile, seems … different. Less tense. Looser around the chops. Where once his tight-jawed pronouncements were limited to brief observations on gravy, they are now unpredictable, freewheeling things full of unexpectedly loud bursts of emotion. And volume. And maverick experiments. In punctuation.
It’s all a bit “modern poetry”. A bit … jazz.
“She. Is an expert with fish,” he says of Natalie. “Because. Her grandfather. Loved. Fish. Aaaaaaand she used to cook it. For him.”
Frankly, the final dishes caaaaaan’t come quickly enough. Not least when they are as gasp-inducing as Thomas’s densely treacle-marinated roast venison, Chariya’s beef tenderloin with “railway fried rice” or Natalie’s twinkly pink disco of a rhubarb crumble, which succeeds in reducing the judges’ knees to custard.
“That was probably the best food. I have eaten in. The history of MasterChef,” Torode soliloquies, directing his jazz-vowels at someone in the wings (Gregg?) before sitting back and patting his belly like a sated Honey Monster. And with that, the final curtain swooshes down.
So long, mate. Thanks. For all the fish.
• MasterChef Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions aired on BBC One is on iPlayer now.
