On the 2024 season of MasterChef Australia, the elimination challenges are heating up. In last night’s episode, judge Andy Allen and his mum Maree tasked eight contestants with elevating one of three classic dishes from the 1980s — a pine burger, lamb chops, and a fruit salad slice. Meanwhile, the MasterChef contestants on the chopping block were Jono, Snezana, Savindri, Nat, Alex, Darrsh, Gill, and Harry.
Originally, Jono was planning to remake the fruit salad slice, but Andy questioned whether the dish would be creative enough. This prompted Jono to make a fruit cheesecake with rum peaches instead.
According to Jono, Andy’s advice might have been a bit of a bum-steer. In an interview with The Latch, Jono explained that he regrets some of the choices he made during this challenge.
“I was getting a bit of a blast from Andy, to be honest,” Jono said. “I also think that with these challenges it’s very easy to maybe take the prompts too literally.”
“When I was watching bits of the episode back with my Nona last night she said to me, ‘Why didn’t you do lamb? You love cooking lamb.’ I was like, ‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ I put my foot in it and made the wrong call.”
Near the end of Jono’s cook, he discovered that his cheesecake was too cold and wouldn’t come out of the springform tin. This forced him to serve the cake to the judges straight from the tin, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they weren’t very impressed. Additionally, they didn’t love that the cake was frozen.
“There’s definitely days where you don’t do your best work, and I think that was probably just one of those days for me,” Jono said. “I just kind of sat there and went, ‘This isn’t my finest work.’ But I had a chance of redemption afterwards.”
In the redemption round, Jono made a tortellini filled with pork and beef ragu. But tragically, the dish just wasn’t up to snuff. Soon, Jono was eliminated from the 2024 MasterChef Australia kitchen.
“When I saw that I was up against Nat, Harry, Darrsh, and Gill, I knew the challenge would be hard,” Jono said.
“There wasn’t a single part of me that was upset about going home after competing against those four,” Jono said. “I just thought, ’These guys are amazing at what they do, and they all deserve to be here. If I’m going to be the bottom one out of these four, then, at the end of the day, it’s still a win in my books.’ … From the very first moment that I got into the MasterChef kitchen, I was blown away.”
What Is Next for MasterChef Australia’s Jono?
Since leaving the 2024 season of MasterChef Australia, Jono has started a private catering company. He’s even secured his first gig, a wedding in Townsville that’s taking place in July.
“I’m actually flying up to Townsville next weekend,” Jono said. “Just to have a meeting with the bride and her husband. We’ll go through a menu that I’ve made and see if there’s anything they want to change.”
MasterChef Australia 2024 airs Mondays though Thursday at 7.30pm, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand. Miss an episode? Catch up on 10 Play.
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