Gary Mehigan of 'MasterChef Australia' fame on parting ways, how 'greedy' it has become & other things

For many, MasterChef Australia hasn't been the same since the likes of Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris part their ways from the iconic cooking contest. After being the faces of arguably the most popular cooking reality show in the world for 11 seasons consecutively, the trio dissociated themselves from the show just before the 12th season was being planned.

Even though they have been vocal in one form or another previously, none of them ever exactly opened up on it. We had the privilege to sit down with Gary Mehigan, who is on a visit to India and went on to have an at-length conversation with him about an array of things.

When asked about the show after their exit and how has he liked it or not, Mehigan said, "To be honest, it's far too professional for my liking. I think it the first season for me is always special because it was unexpected and I think the level of home cooks seemed genuine and certain for their hunger - the first good chunk of the 11 years that I were on it, I was on it. We really found honest, genuine, you know, mums and dads and people that wanted to change their careers and they were honest, their food was quite simple. I mean the the finale dessert. Season one was a chocolate tart with a with a chocolate heart pipe that was made from tempered chocolate and the drama around that was incredible (laughs). And then you fast-forward 10 years and then I can remember Kirsten Tibbles, who's one of our best pastry chefs in Australia, setting a dessert. I even got bored reading the recipe. There was so many processes. I'm just like, you can't follow it. I'm not interested. Do you know what I mean? It was just like beyond."

He added, "Even I think for most chefs, if you put us in the kitchen, it'd be a struggle. So yeah, I still love the idea of an of an honest home cook who loves what they do and the food that they cook can be extremely simple. But if it's beautifully made, it can be better than any restaurant on the planet. And I don't think aspiring to be just like a restaurant is the right thing to do."

When asked about was this the reason for parting ways with MasterChef, he said, "No, I just. I think I was getting old to be honest. Yeah, I mean look negotiations broke down principally over the time that we were required to spend on MasterChef during the year. It was about seven months of the year that we were tied up in it and my aspirations and oh my! It's like sure. Yeah, I think I just want to do something else. So we stood on those, you know, kind of hallowed boards at the front of that studio for 11 years. We did 16 seasons all up, including Junior, All Stars, etc. And I remember asking the head of Channel 10, which is the free to wear network we work for how long do you think the show's going to go for? And he said, I reckon another 10 years. And I looked him in the eye and I said, but surely not with us, like, you know, we're just going to be sucking food through a straw by the time we get to that. So I just, I think he was quite shocked to find out that."

He added, "I promised my my family that I would only do it if I loved it. And my wife said to me, don't do it just because you think that we want you to do it. It's you. So don't come home complaining that it's boring or it's this or it's that. So I I promised myself very early on that once I felt that it wasn't my thing, that it was time to move on. I mean, the way we parted from Channel 10, that was a little bit different. Channel 10 decided to take the narrative and make it about the, you know, the greedy judges. But it wasn't."