The Australian version of the competitive reality cooking show, MasterChef, aired in Network Ten from Sunday through Thursday since 2009.
Following the format of a standard Reality Show, MasterChef Australia features the exploits of 24 individuals as they compete in a series of cooking challenges to win the title of "Masterchef", as well as a prize money of $250,000 and a feature column in the monthly cooking magazine "Delicious".
The series was hosted and judged by Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston until 2019, after which they were replaced by Jock Zonfrillo (who previously appeared as a guest judge in Season 6), Melissa Leong, and Season 4 winner Andy Allen. On April 30th 2023, Jock Zonfrillo passed away after filming Season 15, one day before it was due to premiere. Andy will be returning, but he will be replaced by Jean-Christophe Novelli (a Michelin-starred chef), Poh Ling Yeow and Sofia Levin (a food critic/journalist) in Season 16, with Melissa and season 15 guest judge Amaury Guichon moving on to hosting the spinoff Dessert Masters so the two shows can air concurrently in 2024.
This show contains examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Before each season starts, entertainment magazines and reports would often feature "leaks" of the series' contestants and who to look out for. In many cases, the "featured" contestants don't even make it past the audition.
- Affectionate Nickname: Matt from Season 8 is frequently called "Matty" by his friends.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: While the 3 hosts are generally upfront about what they thought of a dish, one notorious example occurs in Season 2: Matt Preston, having tasted a weird dish, states "That is disgusting!" He lets the plate fall to the floor and shatter. ...before adding "Disgustingly good" and claiming he destroyed the plate so that no one else could taste it.
- Beat Without a "But": A positive variant in Season 12: At the end of the immunity challenge in episode 14, guest judge Curtis Stone picks Jess and Laura's dishes as the clear stand-outs of the day. After giving his assessment on Laura's dish, he starts listing the things he liked about Jess's dish and ending his compliments with a "but..." After a brief pause, he then says that there is actually no "buts", and announces Jess as the winner of that particular challenge.
- Bookend: How Anushka's MasterChef journey started and ended in Season 11 - with a hug from the judges.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Most seasons feature the "Second Chance Challenge", where previously eliminated contestants are given the opportunity to cook their way back into the competition by producing an exemplary dish.
- After being forced to withdraw from Season 6 due to her injuries, Cecilia cooked her way back into the Masterchef kitchen in Season 8. She almost did this twice: during the Second Chance Challenge after her elimination, her dish was considered one of the best; however, she ultimately lost to Theresa, if only by a very narrow margin.
- Season 12, subtitled MasterChef: Back To Win, revolves around this trope by bringing back 24 high-placing contestants (from top 11 to top 2) from previous seasons to compete for a second chance at winning the show.
- Call-Back: Episode 36 of Season 8 brought back the Relay Challenge. During the pre-cooking pep talk, the judges laboured on the importance of communication and warned the contestant about the "White chocolate veloute hell" should they fail to maintain a proper team work — this was, of course, referring to an infamous incident that happened in the previous season, where one contestant (John) decided to completely change his team's dish in the middle of the cook and produced a disastrous dish that sent his team into elimination.
- The Cameo: In the Season 8 Grand Final, during the winner announcement, Reynold (the fan favourite from Season 7) and Anna Polyviou show up as unexpected guests.
- Catchphrase: George's cheer during challenges: "Boom boom, shake the room!" This becomes a Borrowed Catchphrase, when guest chef and Season 7 alumnus Reynold Poernomo uses this phrase before the Pressure Tests he was assigned to oversee in Season 8.
- Cooking Duel: Mostly used in immunity challenges, where the contestant must battle against a professional chef to obtain the pin. The judges would blind-taste their dishes and give a score out of 10. The dish with a higher score is declared the winner.
- Cuddle Bug: Jess from Season 10 (who later returns in Back to Win) is very affectionate and is constantly giving hugs to her fellow contestants. Which makes it even more heartbreaking when she gets eliminated the same week the COVID protocols were set in place, as this means that no one can hug her goodbye when she leaves the kitchen.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Sometimes, in the Immunity Challenges, the professional chefs completely outclass the contestant. In the Sweet Week in Season 9, two of the professionals won 27 vs. 16 and 30 vs. 17 against the the contestants.
- Distaff Counterpart: "Dessert King" Reynold Poernomo from Season 7 gets his counterpart in Season 10's "Dessert Queen" Jess Liemantara. Both are high-end dessert artists who often comes up with gorgeously crafted desserts that looks like work of art and tastes just as good. Bonus points that they both came from Indonesian backgrounds and placed 4th in their respective seasons.
- Double Unlock:
- To win an immunity pin, the contestants must face 2 challenges. In the first round, the top 3 performers from the previous invention test are usually tasked to cook a simple dish in 1 hour. The winner advance to round 2, where they'd have a cooking duel against a professional chef. They'd only get the pin if they defeat the guest chef.
- The post-team challenge elimination also generally has at least 2 rounds. The losing team must first partake in a variety of challenge (e.g. guessing the names of ingredients). Those who fail in the first round must then cook for their place in the competition, with the worst performer being eliminated.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Marco Pierre White is very harsh, especially when it comes to Service Challenges. He'd yell at the contestants, ordering them to pick up their pace and work faster. Somewhat justified, as they're dealing with real customers, and it'd be bad service to make the people wait or give them bad food.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 1 has a lot of elements that were filtered out when Season 2 arrives.
- Sarah Wilson note is the main host of that season. Season 2 has the producers opting to use the three judges as hosts instead.
- The reward of winning a Celebrity Chef Challenge. That season had the winner pass through the finals week and got some training with the celebrity chef. Due to removing said contestant from the unique pressure that allowed the others to grow and losing the sense of familiarity for the viewers. The reward changed to an Immunity Pin where they can use to save themselves from an elimination challenge.
- The losing team from the Team Challenge will have to vote one person off. Obviously unpopular for not matching the integrity of the show and ripe for abuse, now the losing team has to participate in another cooking challenge to determine who's going to be eliminated.
- Easily Forgiven: During a team relay challenge in Season 7, John almost single-handedly destroyed his group's dish by attempting to change the dish into something else entirely, but ended up overcomplicating the elements, and leaving the last two cooks from his team completely lost on what they're actually making (and giving Georgia essentially five minutes to make a totally new dish while battling a panic attack). This puts the whole team in danger of elimination. But the others, while dejected at their poor results, did not seem to be angry at him at all, and even came to his defense when the viewers started to send him hate messages on Facebook.
- Endangered Soufflé: In one of the elimination rounds in Season 7, Jacqui tried to impress the judges by creating a soufflé out of her mystery box ingredients. While the soufflé looked good while it was in the oven, it quickly collapsed when she brought it to the judges.
- Elimination Catchphrase: "For one of you, the dream is about to end."
- Friendly Rivalry: Masterchef Australia distinguishes itself from most other versions of the show (especially the US version) by its complete lack of hostility between the contestants. In fact, everyone is always supportive of one another—cheering for the ones who perform well, and comforting those who don't. During the challenges, it's not uncommon to see the contestants share utensils and ingredients with their benchmates, and sometimes even exchange advice and ideas.
- Guilty Pleasures: One of the Season 7 challenges revolves around this, with Georgia having to pick one "guilty pleasure" ingredient from a table of three that all the contestants have to cook with.
- Improbable Age: Season 8 features guest chef Flynn McGarry to supervise one of the Pressure Test. The kicker? Kid is only 17, and wouldn't have met the age requirement to become a contestant... but he's good enough to qualify as a "top chef" and brought in a really complicated dish that many professionals would struggle to recreate.
- In-Series Nickname:
- The "Eliminator" Rose from Season 7, for having landed in at least 8 elimination rounds, surviving each and every one (often with very strong results) before finally getting the boot in the last one.
- From the same season, Reynold is known as the "Dessert King" due to his incredible skill in making sweets, and is even advertised as such in the commercials.
- Marco Pierre White is frequently referred to as "The Godfather of modern cooking" by the judges. And it's not undeserved: the man was Gordon Ramsay's mentor, after all.
- Jess from Season 10 is called the "Dessert Queen" for the highly complex, technical and intricate dessert dishes she often comes up with. Even the judges acknowledge this nickname.
- Irony: Any time a cook gets sent home on dishes that involve their specialty. For example:
- Marion in Season 2. Marion is the daughter of a Thai chef, has a masters degree in South Asian cooking, and had written her dissertation on Thai sauces. Making a satay sauce should have been her dream challenge. She was eliminated after the judges deemed her sauce “claggy”
- Ashleigh, one of the desserts specialists in Season 7, failed to deliver on a passion fruit dessert despite being the most enthusiastic to try creating the recipe at first.
- He didn't actually get eliminated, but Reynold has this happen to him in the 7-course-meal team challenge. During the draw to decide the course that each contestant had to cook, he lucked out and got dessert. Even better, the ingredient he was assigned with was his favourite/specialty, chocolate. However, the pressure of having to cook for 40 people by himself seem to get over his head that he almost burnt his chocolate, his crimeoux ended up too runny, and he was sent into elimination on a dish that should have been a winner.
- In the quarter final of Season 8, Elise gets sent home over a dessert dish, which is her specialty. Even worse, her two opponents, Harry and Matt, were actually savoury-specialist who were forced to do a dessert due to Elise's choice of ingredient. The judges' decision was certainly a surprise to everyone.
- Like Brother and Sister: Season 4 has Ben and Emma, who formed an older brother-little sister dynamic over their time together in the Masterchef kitchen. Ben likes to playfully tease the younger girl, but he's very protective of her, to the point that he was willing to withdraw from the competition to keep her place there when the two was forced to cook off against one another in an elimination.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the more well-known US version, Masterchef Australia has much less bitchiness going on the show, as the contestants are usually good friends with each other, and the judges are very supportive and constructive in their criticism. Viewers also notice that Gordon Ramsay seem to dial back on his Drill Sergeant Nasty tendencies compared to the way he usually is on the US version.
- Midnight Snack: The first round of the Immunity Challenge that took place during Season 8's Nigella Week has the three hopeful contestants cook up a midnight snack for Nigella, which is something she is apparently well-known for.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Brent withdrew from the competition in season 13. He then came back in Season 15 and won.
- Non-Gameplay Elimination:
- In Season 1, one of the chefs quit after making the top 50, due to the stress of the competition.
- In Season 2, Sarah quit after making the top 24, due to feeling that her heart was no longer in the competition.
- And just to make it a pattern, Season 3's Paul withdrew due to "work commitments", having his spot taken in the top 24 by another contestant.
- After making it to the top 14 in Season 3, Adam resigned his position after ending up in a pressure test, saying he felt he lacked the commitment the others in the pressure test felt towards cooking.
- After making it to the top 9, Mat was eliminated from Season 3 after it was revealed he'd been breaking the rules by bringing a smartphone into the Master Chef kitchen.
- In Season 5, Andrew had to leave the show due to chronic knee injuries that would likely be exacerbated by the competition.
- In Season 6, Cecilia was initially put through to the Top 24, but was removed from the competition on medical grounds, due to the fact that she was recovering from a serious brain injury that she had received only 3 months prior.
- Once again happened in Season 7, where Mario was immediately eliminated just after getting through the Top 24 when it was discovered that he had an experience as a professional chef (an immediate disqualifier for the show).
- In Season 12, Ben left the competition because he was arrested for sexual assault.
- In Season 13, Brent left due to mental health issues.
- Perspective Reversal:
- The last MasterClass in Season 8 has 3 of the judges (George, Gary and Shannon) switch places with the contestants and participate in a Mystery Box challenge. Meanwhile, the contestants get the chance to have revenge on them by looming over the work benches, questioning and criticising their work.
- When Reynold gives his pressure test in Season 8, he mentions how weird it is standing on the judges' side of the table.
- Product Placement: Coles supplies all the fresh ingredients for Master Chef Australia. And pick up some Western Star butter... only at Coles!
- The Runner-Up Takes It All:
- Season 1 winner Julie Goodwin released cookbooks, wrote a few columns in Women's Weekly (an Australian magazine) and opened a cooking school, which paled in comparison to runner-up Poh Ling Yeow who become a bigger household name in the cooking community, starting with her own cooking TV show Poh's Kitchen. Fourth place finisher in the same season Justine has a weekday TV show called "Everyday Gourmet".
- Season 7's fourth place Reynold Poernomo is one of the biggest internet sensations from the show. He manages to open up his own dessert bar shortly after leaving the Masterchef kitchen (which is the dream of most Masterchef contestants) and is the first of the show's alumnis to ever be invited back to coordinate a Pressure Test (a privilege that's given to only the top chefs). It's probably helped by the fact that his brother, Arnold Poernomo, is a famous chef in Indonesia who also has his own restaurant and is a recurring judge of Masterchef Indonesia.
- Matt Sinclair may have lost Season 8 to Elena Duggan. But he has consistently been invited back as a guest chef in subsequent seasons, even becoming one of the contestants' mentors (alongside past winner Billie and Season 1 runner-up Poh), while Elena has been conspicuously absent.
- Sibling Rivalry: Season 8 has a pair of brother and sister auditioning together, both impressing the judges, and both winning the apron. However, while the advertisements tend to play up the brother vs. sister dynamic, the two are very close and supportive towards each other. In fact, aside from one throwaway line during the auditions, where Jimmy (rather playfully) tells the judges that he's the better chef compared to his sister, the two show no hint of rivalry at all.
- Something Only They Would Say: A variant in Season 2; the contestants, while blind tasting dishes made for them by the previously eliminated contestants, correctly identified that Jimmy had made one dish because his style of Indian curries was so unique and notable.
- Special Guest: The series regularly features celebrity chefs to either serve as a guest mentor during challenges, to oversee the Pressure Tests, or to face-off against the contestants during the Immunity challenge. "Regular" guests who show up almost every year include Marco Pierre White, Maggie Beer, Curtis Stone and Heston Blumenthal.
- Spin-Off: Dessert Masters.
- Starstruck Speechless: Happens to almost all the chefs when, in the middle of the Immunity Challenge, the judges announce Katy Perry as an additional guest judge. For a while, everyone could only stare and gape while going, "Is this really happening?" This is especially true for Reece, who is a big fan; and when Katy actually comes over his counter to talk to him, he's so dumb struck that he has to duck behind his counter's oven in a sheer ball of nervousness.
- Strong Family Resemblance: When Season 6 auditionee Grant came to the judges' "lair", George immediately began telling Gary how much the guy looks like Ben Milbourne from Season 4. He's, of course, Ben's younger brother.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Brent from Season 6 managed to get into all but two eliminations but always managed to overcome them, eventually managing to win the competition.
- Tiebreaker Round: In one episode of Season 2, both the Blue Team and Red Team were equally matched, and the judges could not decide on a winning team. As a result, two members from each team faced an elimination challenge.
- Too Awesome to Use: Season 12 only has 1 Immunity pin for the entire season. Changes in the competition format also sees that all but one contestant who won the "Weekly Immunity" will participate in an all-in elimination challenge at the end of the week (normally, only the losers of a team challenge or the bottom 3-5 of an invention challenge are sent to elimination). Dani, who won the only Immunity pin, wants to keep holding onto the pin for as long as she could, and participates in the weekly elimination challenges despite having the chance to save herself when she fails to win the weekly immunity. She ends up being eliminated in week 3.
- Took a Level in Badass: Season 8's Teresa Visintin was not seen as a particularly strong cook, being rather scatterbrained, frequently taking way too much time to think up of a dish, and her performance before her first elimination was mediocre at best. After winning the second chance to cook in the Masterchef kitchen again, she's plated up very strong dishes that had the judges raving about it, and her food had been named "dish of the day" a couple of times. Matt Preston says that she's transformed into a different (and much better) chef since her return.
- Trailers Always Spoil: It's become a common norm that episode previews have a habit of spoiling what happens in the next episode down to who gets eliminated if it happens to be elimination challenge/pressure test. Those who already know this always refrain from watching them and remind new viewers to do the same.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Season 7 — after constantly placing the bottom 3, Rose finally had the chance to shine in Episode 21, where her dish was considered as the Top 5 of the batch, only to be sent back to the elimination block for the third time in a row (and fourth time in total) when she failed to deliver in the Invention test that follows.
- Younger and Hipper: Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo are (collectively) younger than Matt, Gary and George, and they are more likely than their predecessors to joke around with the contestants and make pop culture references (such as when Melissa compares one of Jess's dessert to the "mushrooms" from Mario Kart).
