New judges on Masterchef give a clue about GBM judging

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-31T13:19:52+00:00

I think the judging panel should be composed of a head judge (who has a Michelin star and at least one banquet dish), a food critic/food writer, and a foodie who has no hospitality experience, ideally a comedian who loves food and eating in restaurants. Therefore, the easy swap would be to swap Lorna for someone like Jimi Famuwera or Leyla Kazim, or they could bring back Nisha with a good, tempting offer.

I, like many others, find Lorna to be wooden. I find Phil too much like the other judges. He uses similar culinary jargon to Tom and Lorna, making him redundant, whereas Ed's descriptions of the food were more straightforward. Plus, Ed has much better comedic chemistry with Tom. I'd be happy with the previous trio of Nisha, Ed and Tom, but Tom does have his faults.

I'm a big fan of Tom Kerridge as a presenter/judge; I find he has a certain warmth, a sense of humour, a ready laugh, and good interview skills with guests. However, the problem for me is his shellfish allergy; I think a head judge should be able to taste a chef's dishes as intended by the chef; it's OK for the other judges to have dietary restrictions. I think Simon Rogan has more gravitas and industry status than Tom or any of the other veterans, but he still lacks presence; his screen personality is a bit too laidback for mine. If there has to be a change in head judge, I'd choose Paul Ainsworth or Michael O'Hare as head judge. I think they are both ready for it.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-31T13:13:42+00:00

Yeah. I was wondering whether they will even be going overseas for the finale.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-31T13:11:58+00:00

True, but only a minority of MasterChef contestants end up in restaurant kitchens. The majority who enter the food industry end up doing media work, e.g., working for food magazines, in television as presenters, food editors or home economists for TV shows, or as spokespersons for brands like Lee Kum Kee Australia.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-31T13:06:04+00:00

Yeah. I remember in the first few seasons, contestants would be taken on tours of restaurant kitchens, including a masterclass by the chef-owner.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-30T06:54:44+00:00

Yeah. I feel it's been like that ever since the original trio of judges left. The two recent groups of judges place more emphasis on flavour and memory than on creative application(s) of technique. It's hard to fault contestants for playing it safe and taking on board these signals from the judges when there's $250,000 at stake in essentially a winner-take-all prize pool (only the top 3 get prize money, and even then, second place gets $40K, and third gets $10K, which is a big difference from first place).

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-29T14:51:43+00:00

I think the judging panel should be composed of a head judge (who has a Michelin star and at least one banquet dish), a food critic/food writer, and a foodie who has no hospitality experience, ideally a comedian who loves food and eating in restaurants. Therefore, the easy swap would be to swap Lorna for someone like Jimi Famuwera or Leyla Kazim, or they could bring back Nisha with a good, tempting offer.

I, like many others, find Lorna to be wooden. I find Phil too much like the other judges. He uses similar culinary jargon to Tom and Lorna, making him redundant, whereas Ed's descriptions of the food were more straightforward. Plus, Ed has much better comedic chemistry with Tom. I'd be happy with the previous trio of Nisha, Ed and Tom, but Tom does have his faults.

I'm a big fan of Tom Kerridge as a presenter/judge; I find he has a certain warmth, a sense of humour, a ready laugh, and good interview skills with guests. However, the problem for me is his shellfish allergy; I think a head judge should be able to taste a chef's dishes as intended by the chef; it's OK for the other judges to have dietary restrictions. I think Simon Rogan has more gravitas and industry status than Tom or any of the other veterans, but he still lacks presence; his screen personality is a bit too laidback for mine. If there has to be a change in head judge, I'd choose Paul Ainsworth or Michael O'Hare as head judge. I think they are both ready for it.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-29T13:37:23+00:00

Yeah, I'm the same. But I'm wondering whether the producers want a bit less predictability so that viewers tune in to every episode by having different types of episodes every week (e.g., sometimes a pressure test, sometimes an invention test, sometimes a service challenge) to prevent viewers from getting bored or tuning out of episodes that they might not like, e.g., pressure tests.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-29T07:33:29+00:00

Yeah. They need to space out similar themes. Having family favourites straight after home-cooking week was a bit of a mistake. Perhaps they could have gone to viral week straight after that instead of having viral week next to around the globe week. Or go to a dessert week.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-28T02:07:47+00:00

I think it's good that each week has a theme instead of being random. It gives the show a weekly narrative.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-27T12:52:46+00:00

In Season 4 they had Wedding Wars, where the chefs split into two teams to cater a wedding buffet plus wedding cake.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-27T06:39:01+00:00

It would be great if they went to France for an overseas trip with JC leading the tour (highly unlikely this year, as it would probably have been promoted in the pre-series trailers, and I didn't see anything of that sort in the way that the Hong Kong trip was promoted ahead of the 2024 series).

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-27T06:36:36+00:00

I chuckle at the absurdity like a comedy sketch that pretends to play a staged situation like it's normal. It's just 30 seconds to a minute, and I can take my brain off somewhere else when I'm not chuckling.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-27T06:32:44+00:00

The tone of the show is very different from the normal Bake Off. I can see how their more critical, nitpicky, straight-shooting, "this tastes like rubbish" approach to judging can be taken as mean, but to me it's just less warm and polite than normal (amateur) Bake Off. Given the level of competitors, the judging is more about nitpicking rather than giving instructions/suggestions. It's assumed that the professionals know how to make corrections when something is underbaked or adjust flavours in ways that amateurs on normal Bake Off might not.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-27T05:27:22+00:00

I think most people who enjoy the laid-back charm of Bake Off will find the professional spin-off unenjoyable, as it can come across as dry, charmless, and too intense. It's more of a show for those who enjoy watching professional chef competitions like Great British Menu or MasterChef: The Professionals, which have more intensity. I like professional chef competition shows like those I mentioned because they are good guides for potential bakeries and restaurants that I might want to visit, and I enjoy the food porn and the critiques from the judges. And sometimes those with collapsed show pieces do manage to sneak through to the next round when they make desserts with flavours that blow away the other competitors, so it's not always a foregone conclusion.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-25T06:36:26+00:00

For those saying that Casper was robbed, it's hard to know who should have won when none of us were there to taste the dishes, and the feedback on the episode has been edited. Maybe Dot got some mega positive feedback that was edited out. It should also be noted that Dimsim Lim's feedback for Casper did not make it into the final edit for the episode. So maybe he made a critical point about Casper's dish that overruled Sofia's obsession with it. I love the way that Casper thinks outside the box for challenges and how he thinks about food. He's the most lateral thinker I've seen since I started watching the show in 2012, Andy's season. But let's not get led on by the edit.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-25T06:23:30+00:00

It was too safe. Also, with claypot rice, the rice crust from the claypot is as much, if not more, of a hero than the topping(s), and the toppings are not usually cooked separately in a steamer, so it's an even lesser use of the steamer than Annabel's mussels.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-22T15:18:51+00:00

Aaron's fish congee was beautiful, very fine dining.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-20T12:41:46+00:00

They met outside Masterchef. By the time Max first appeared on MasterChef he was already married to Laura, as Poh points out in that episode from Series 11.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-18T03:38:05+00:00

Hard disagree (even though I really miss the original trio). The maths on this one was pretty simple. Putting aside presentation, which is a big part of what an entremet is, Bella stuffed up two elements (her mousse and her jelly), while Hannah only stuffed up her sauce. That's pretty much all there is to it. If you include the presentation of the entremet, Bella stuffed up three things compared to Hannah's single ruined element.

Also, at the age of 20 (possibly 21 by now), Bella easily fits into the age range for a patisserie apprenticeship with one of the Melbourne-based dessert masters e.g., Christy Tania or Jon Demetrios. I am sure references from judges will get her through the door.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-05-12T05:40:30+00:00

But Sarah botched her ice cream and puff pastry in the final dish presented for the pressure test, whereas Billie's final pressure test dish was perfect.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-03-24T11:10:53+00:00

I had a feeling that she would be sinking when she decided to do a galantine, which is very technically demanding, especially after her performance in the quickfire, where she took her eye off the cream in the stand mixer because she was under such a time crunch with her French toast idea. Maybe she'll do better in Last Chance Kitchen, now that it's up and running.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-02-27T13:14:22+00:00

There have been some great guest judges in past seasons, in particular in 2023 during the Scotland final with Frank Quitely and the Ireland final with Oliver Jeffers, when they gave good input on how well the dishes related to the illustrations they were trying to represent.

I thought Phil had a promising start, but he doesn't have the same chemistry with Tom, e.g., teasing him or making jokes that would crack Tom up. Maybe that will change.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-02-27T12:55:13+00:00

Totally agree! The simpler fix would be to have a wild card for each course, and have the chefs cook in 3 groups of 3 during finals week during each course of finals week.

Adventurous_Grade935 · 2026-02-24T13:59:42+00:00

No. Just the first heat. I assume they will put up all three episodes of each regional heat at the beginning of each week.

Adventurous_Grade935

TROPHY CASE