After a gruelling few weeks in the studio kitchen, MasterChef’s top eight contestants could not have been more excited to be boarding a plane to Fiji for the next stage of the competition – and a well-earned treat.
But one boarding pass was missing – Simon Gault’s.
Just hours before the team was set to fly out, Simon was given the news that his father Bryan had suffered a severe stroke.
“I love cooking – it’s my passion – but family is the most important thing and my dad had been urgently rushed to hospital,” says Simon, who
is close to both his parents – he and Bryan love flying a vintage Thunder Mustang plane that is Simon’s pride and joy.
“Of course I wanted to go to Fiji with the team, but there was simply no question in my mind what I had to do. It was important I was with him, and thankfully the team at MasterChef understood and told me to take all the time I needed, for which I’m very grateful,” says Simon.
While Bryan is on the mend – “he’s getting there, but very slowly” – things were going from bad to worse for some of the contestants on the paradise island.
She was smiling when she arrived, but Vanessa quickly got on Simon’s nerves.
“It’s so much harder than you’d think, cooking in a strange kitchen. If you don’t believe me, try making your favourite dish in someone else’s house.
I guarantee it’ll take you a lot longer!” smiles Brenton. “As time goes on, the challenges get harder and that extra 10 seconds it takes you to find things really adds up. Trust me, at this point in the competition 10 seconds can make a huge difference – it’s make or break.”
Simon agrees. “I often have to cook in new kitchens, and I’m usually afforded the time to check out where everything is so I know what I’m doing.
“The contestants didn’t have that – all they had were their wits. They had to adapt, fast.”
While it was Jennis whose time was up at the end of the trip, she isn’t the contestant to earn the most criticism from Simon.
“Vanessa made me cross,” he admits. “She’s definitely a better cook than Jennis – Vanessa has a lot of knowledge, she’s travelled and knows plenty of different cuisines. But when she won the crab race, which meant she got the most time of all the contestants to prepare her dish, all she did was complain about it.
“Much as going into the kitchen is a pain because you can’t chill out by the pool, from a cooking point of view she was given a huge advantage.
But you wouldn’t think it from the way she went on!”
“Vanessa’s just lucky she had [Huka Lodge’s executive chef] Michel Louws with her,” says Brenton. “She was completely in a dither about what she wanted to present to the judges until 90 seconds before the end – it was Michel who kept her calm. She’s very lucky to still be there.”
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