MasterChef Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions Review – John Torode Finally Leaves the Kitchen | Master Chef

SS. Farewell then, John Torode. You have been a co-presenter of MasterChef and Celebrity MasterChef. Until it wasn’t. But first, and last, there’s this: the second of two festive specials in which we watch the Australian stare at potatoes while pretending we don’t know The BBC chose not to renew his contract in July after upholding the allegation against him of using a “deeply offensive racist term”. (Turode denies the allegations and claims he has “no recollection” of the incident.)

So let’s move past the insults (two Christmas specials from 2024; runner-up headliner “MASTERCHEF CHAOS”; and a MasterChef series that aired but with two contestants and which was edited at their request; Gregg Wallace) and remember it this way: staring at the linen as a horrified former credit controller from Hackney drops half a lobster on the studio floor.

“Two sessions. Two and a half hours. Ladies and gentlemen,” Torode announced, arms wide. “Let’s cook.“

And we’re off. MasterChef Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions finds four former MasterChef winners vying for the honorary “ultimate” accolade and a trophy in the shape of a golden frying pan mounted on a pedestal (good luck trying to put it in the dishwasher after you burn off your sausage frittata, Champion of Champions).

They are Bryn Peratapan (who originally won in 2024), Thomas Frick (2020), Natalie Coleman (2013), and Sharia Khatiut (2023). Remember them? Maybe not. Thanks to the incessant turmoil of the TV-industrial complex, their names, “journeys” and duck parfait have been – to this viewer at least – long since lost to the sands of time. Perhaps Torode and co-host Grace Dent will ask Amenhotep III to collect a rare Welsh item. However, they are a cheerful bunch, with special ceremonial tasks favoring the kind of chuckles that can be done on a show boat. Their first mission? To create a dish “fit for royalty!” Chariya prepares to work on a “Golden Beehive Candy” consisting of orange liqueur gel, dark chocolate, milk chocolate in the shape of a honeybee, and a construction site from the honeycomb ruins next door to Crunchie.

“Mine,” says guest judge Tom Parker Bowles approvingly. “He-he,” answers Sharia, who, for reasons never quite made clear, is dressed as Widow Twankie.

Meanwhile, Natalie, downing the lobster, is preparing a lamb cannon with ‘artichokes four ways’, anchovies, garlic cream, port sauce and redcurrants. “I don’t want to make myself look like a doll,” she exclaimed as she put the finishing touches on a meatball that looked like a tiny bald man wearing a hairnet. Greggling, if you will.

Former vet Breen presents us with a stunning slab of halibut Yellow Submarine-style, his Lord Kitchener mustache fluttering triumphantly over the accompanying champagne and saffron. Brienne is delightful company, but we must draw a tight veil over his habit of speaking of Brienne in the third person. (“We’re back to bold, smack-in-your-face Brain flavors!” he says, and the mustache wilts like spinach.)

As chefs fire up their stoves, we find our thoughts wandering. First to Dent, whose cheerful interactions with the contestants are everything Torode (flat and detached) and Wallace (a dog barking at a piece of crap across the fence) aren’t. It is a joy; Her unaffected enthusiasm provides a smooth, embroidered bridge between Old MasterChef (puffy, Gregg-y) and New MasterChef (funny, involved, unlikely to be sacked after multiple allegations of bad weather).

Meanwhile, Torode seems…different. Less stressed. More flexible about cutting. Where once his clench-jawed pronouncements were limited to brief observations about gravy, they were now unpredictable, freewheeling stuff filled with unexpected high bursts of emotion. And the size. And dissident experiments. In punctuation marks.

It’s all “modern poetry.” A little…jazz.

“She. She.” expert “With fish,” he says of Nathalie. Find her. I loved. fish. Oh, and it was like that Cook it. “For him.”

Honestly, the finished dishes caaaaaan don’t come fast enough. Not least when they’re as gasping as Thomas’s heavily spiced roast venison, Sharia’s beef tenderloin with ‘fried rice’ or Nathalie’s sparkling pink disco of rhubarb crumble, which manages to turn the judges’ knees into custard.

“Maybe it was the Best food. I ate in date “From MasterChef,” Torode soliloquizes, directing his vowels to someone in the wings (Greg?) before sitting down and patting his stomach like a honey-soaked monster. And with that, the final curtain falls.

So long, mate. Thanks. For all fish.