Masterchef (BBC1)
Rating: Three out of five stars.
After a year of scandal and sackings, MasterChef (BBC1) is back, but is this new version a dish to savour or just more reheated leftovers?
New presenters Grace Dent (restaurant critic, Carlisle) and Anna Haugh (chef, Dublin) certainly bring girl-power energy along with a fresh dash of wit and panache, but is that enough? Now in its 22nd series, MasterChef is still the biggest cooking show on television, but has become a rather tired franchise, corroded by the behaviour of its previous hosts.
Last year the BBC announced it would not renew the contracts of presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode, following – respectively – upheld multiple complaints of sexual harassment and one use of an offensive racial term.
Out on the promotional stump this week, Grace and Anna were airily telling journalists they didn’t want to talk about the past, only focus on the future. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? What else could they say?
But before anyone can consult their lawyers, we are back in the land of fruit gels, dubious purees, squid-ink tuiles and yes, even an ‘elevated guacamole’.
Some things never change. It is 2026, not 2006, but in the MasterChef kitchen contestants are still using tweezers to plate up, adding edible flowers as garnishes – in one case, a centrepiece rose made of beetroot.
Meanwhile, the breathless studio voiceovers tell the usual tale of doomed dishes and dashed dreams.
‘Digital portfolio manager Rosdip has made masala-chai flavoured American pancakes with miso-glazed bacon, whipped avocado, pistachio praline and a pistachio custard,’ is a classic from the first episode. ‘These flavours are fighting in my mouth,’ says Anna in polite understatement.
Irish chef Anna Haugh and restaurant critic Grace Dent are the face of Masterchef’s new incarnation
‘Advertising executive Maria,’ booms another voiceover, ‘has made a baked doughnut topped with caramelised pineapple spiced with scotch-bonnet chilli, tamarind and lime, served on ginger custard with a pistachio crumb.’
Can’t somebody please stop her? And when Anna ponders on the wisdom of baking a doughnut instead of frying it, she speaks for us all. ‘It feels a bit heavy,’ she sighs. A contestant called Michael is thrilled with his own invention – black-pudding foam, don’t all scream at once – which he pipes into streaks on his plate. Grace observes it looks like her mascara after a night out.
Another contestant decides the best accompaniment to baked salmon is a passion-fruit coulis and oh yes why not, some pureed parsnips, too. Elsewhere, scallops and radishes are sprinkled with cinnamon for no reason and crab bonbons are judged ‘under-seasoned and undercooked’.
A try-hard named Sabina makes a ‘harmony salad’ of black beans, crispy chicken skin, falafel, quail eggs and garlic mushrooms – not just because she wants to impress but also ‘to create world peace within a dish’. Good luck with that. Still, you have to love these mixed-ability contestants, all of whom risk humiliation in front of millions to live the dream.
One hopeful didn’t eat an egg until he was 25. The signature dish of another is pork served seven different ways – a piggy riddle, wrapped in Parma ham inside a culinary porcine enigma.
Black Pudding Foam Man is undaunted by criticism. ‘This experience has enhanced my willingness to take what I like and make it better,’ he says, because he knows best.
The series had been hosted by John Torode and Gregg Wallace until the BBC said it would not renew their contracts last year
Forget about the contestants, for the success of the new series will rise or fall on the appeal of new girls Dent and Haugh.
Instead of the Cockney banter and tiresome big-dog bullishness of the previous hosts, they already bring genuine good cheer and much-needed fem-verve to proceedings.
Indeed, if anyone can save MasterChef, surely it is Grace Dent. In her demi-beehive, glam dresses and oyster-sized earrings, she seems to have taken Fanny Cradock as her style inspiration and maxxed it up in the retro blender with a little bit of Cruella energy and some essence of camp; like a 1970s hostess who would push a shrimp sputnik across her G-plan coffee table with a stockinged foot.
I like her commanding air and unexpected turn of phrase. ‘Can you fritter a lentil?’ she wondered aloud in one episode this week. ‘Is there any way I can eat this and not look like a wild animal?’ she asked before wrestling with a pancake taco.
The short answer was no. She descended upon it like a white shark spotting a crippled crab on the ocean floor.
Anna has her looks of gurning concern and her moments, too (‘I do not want to see him boiling the bejaysus out of that fish’), but perhaps a proper onscreen chemistry between the two women has yet to be established.
So it’s not quite there yet. It needs more time to bake in the oven. But these new Batwoman and Robinette superheroines show promise and are nothing but an improvement on the horrors of the past.
