It’s MasterChef meets My Kitchen Rules — quite literally — and just in case you didn’t realise it, the Plate of Origin judges will not let you forget it.
Hosted by Manu Feildel (My Kitchen Rules) and former Masterchef judges, Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan, the series is a world-class cooking competition that will pit plate against plate and cook against cook.
In the first fifteen minutes of the first episode, the “world-class” chefs sit down for a round-table conversation.
“I can’t believe that the three of us are finally working together after all those years,” Feildel tells his colleagues.
“Because you were so close weren’t you, with MasterChef,” Preston said before Feildel admitted he was “that” close to becoming one of the judges on the hit Network Ten series.
“Apparently, the reason why I didn’t get the gig at the time was my French accent,” he said, which was quite a comment.
Forever the diplomat, Preston joked that it was because his co-host was “too good looking” before saying “so we put in a little Greek guy”. Ouch.
Call it what you will, but to mention Feildel’s unsuccessful attempt at getting on the series because of his accent, naming the actual show which is on a rival network — the one Mehigan and Preston were unceremoniously booted from — and then to not even mention former judge George Colambaris by name — seemed to be a little side serving of revenge.
Back in July 2019, it was announced that Preston, Mehigan and Colambaris would not be returning for the 2020 season of MasterChef.
“We would like to thank Gary, George and Matt for their contribution over the past 11 years,” Network Ten’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Anderson said in a statement before adding that they had “been in negotiation with the three guys for a number of months”.
In an interview with Ten News, he confirmed that the axing was “not about George”, even though Colombaris had been shrouded in controversy after it was found he had underpaid his employees by nearly $8 million.
“The reality is that we couldn’t meet the demands of the three judges.”
Feildel, on the other hand, has had successful 11 seasons as a judge on My Kitchen Rules, however, earlier this year, news broke that his co-host Pete Evans was asked to leave the popular show after positioning himself as a problematic self-styled health guru.
There’s no news on the fate of the series and Feildel, but we’re hoping that Plate of Origin is a success for all judges involved.