Colin Fassnidge likes to joke that he and Manu Feildel are “basically a married couple without the sex, which is probably a married couple”. The truth is, they really do get along with each other very well.
Last year, while filming both My Kitchen Rules and their New Zealand travel show Off The Grid With Colin And Manu, the famous foodies spent six months on the road together, away from their families.
“Our kids are teenagers – well, one of his is – and we’ve got the same sort of family things going on,” says Irish chef Colin, 53. “And then we both work with stuff in mental health, so we talk about everything. I probably wouldn’t do it if he wasn’t doing it, to be perfectly honest.”
“We’re attached at the hip,” adds French-born Manu, 52. “We’re like two brothers, really, more than anything else.”
“I like to niggle him”
Their friendship has even survived Manu punching Colin in the head during the second season of Off The Grid – as they revealed in Woman’s Day earlier this year.
“He’d organised a boxing match on our last shoot,” recalls Colin. “He’s a very good boxer and I’m not. He brought his boxing gloves in his suitcase, so that tells you how planned it was! On the last day, we got into this miniature ring, so there was nowhere to go, and I clocked a massive one to the head. There was a very quiet drive home in the car.”
But no hard feelings? “I deserved it, to be perfectly honest,” Colin admits. “Because I like to niggle him.”
The two Sydney-based chefs met filming MKR in 2013, when Colin appeared as a guest judge. By that stage, Manu had already been fronting the show with Aussie cook-turned-conspiracy theorist Pete Evans for three seasons.
Behind the scenes
Over the years, Manu and Colin have seen a lot of drama around the dinner table, and there’s more coming up this season – a bit too much for Manu’s taste.
“It seems that that’s what people like to watch,” he sighs. “I don’t know why, frankly. I do this show because I love the food part of it – travelling around the country, meeting some nice people, getting some family recipes… All of that is what I want, but unfortunately, people have to get their nails out and start scratching each other.”
“Manu’s getting grumpier as he gets older,” teases Colin. “We both are, but he’s more grumpy than me.”
Colin doesn’t mind if people argue around the table, he insists. “But you’d better be able to back it up the next day when you cook!”
Every season, there are confident home cooks who end up in tears when things go horribly wrong in the kitchen. Manu says there have been “hundreds, thousands” of times that he and Colin have wanted to help – a lot more than is shown on TV.
“Colin and I sneak in to the kitchen often, so we know where they’re at,” he reveals. Colin adds, “A lot of the time, they’re like a rabbit in the headlights. They start to panic and they don’t want to listen. But usually, when we’re in there, we’re trying to tell them what’s wrong.”
Starting out
Both Manu and Colin started their cooking careers in the UK. Manu says his apprenticeship was “a lot harder than a cooking show”. He remembers, “It was brutal. You had to be tough and if you weren’t tough, you wouldn’t be succeeding.”
Colin also says he’s seen “everything” in kitchens. “One day, I didn’t shave properly and they made me do it with a razor that they shaved the pigs with – I had cuts on my face! And I’ve seen people have breakdowns. I’ve seen a guy get stabbed mid-service.”
Colin came to Australia in 1999, just wanting a holiday, but he was invited to work at legendary Sydney restaurant Banc. “The rest is history,” he says.
Meanwhile, Manu, who also moved to Australia in 1999, was only looking for a job and never expected a TV career. He insists, “All I wanted was to be a chef in someone’s restaurant and I’ve done a lot more than that. I pinch myself daily.”
‘She’s a better cook than us’
But Manu isn’t the only one in his family with a TV career. His wife Clarissa, the mother of his daughter Charlee, 11, is a presenter on Aussie lifestyle show Better Homes And Gardens, often working alongside Colin.
“It was never planned,” says Manu. “But they were looking for a female chef or cook for the show and Colin was kind enough to put Clarissa forward.”
Colin declares that Clarissa is a better cook than himself or Manu. He jokes, “When Manu says, ‘Do you want to come for dinner?’ I’ll ask, ‘Who’s cooking?’ If it’s Clarissa, I’m 100% there. I’d eat her food every day of the week.”
Colin – who shares daughters Lily, 16, and Maeve, 14, with wife Jane – recently returned to Ireland for Better Homes And Gardens. He misses his parents, who still live there.
“I’m just a phone call away from bad news,” he says, although he has no plans to move back to live. “When I fly back in from Ireland and see the Opera House, I feel I’m home.”
Meanwhile, Manu is also happy he made the decision to move countries nearly three decades ago, grinning, “The best thing I’ve ever done is to come to Australia.”
So, how long will they keep hosting MKR?
“Anyone who thinks their TV gig will last forever is in for a rude shock,” says Colin. “Sometimes me and Manu think we’re going to retire. But what else would we do? We’d be so bored!”
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