Masterchef have crowned their winner for 2024.
Victorian barista, Nat Thaipun, has been named the winner, taking home $250,000 and a residency at Crown Melbourne’s ALUMNI restaurant.
In the grand finale on Tuesday night Nat was up against Tasmanian butcher, Josh “Pezza” Perry, two very different cooks each with a unique set of strengths.
In round one, it was an ingredient knockout challenge. The five ingredient options were fennel, lemongrass, black peppercorns, mint and baby leeks. Black peppercorns were the final ingredient left standing, so Nat and Pezza needed to hero this ingredient in their dishes.
Pezza decided to stick to his butcher strengths and made rib eye with fondant potatoes, brussels sprouts done two ways and a peppercorn sauce. The judges loved how Pezza stuck to his guns and delivered a perfect steak. His peppercorn sauce was packed with punchy flavour, but the texture of his brussels sprout purée was a touch grainy.
Nat continued her risktaker ways, deciding to make a scotch egg with sai oua, a Northern Thai sausage full of heavy hitting flavours, along with nam prig noom, a Thai roasted green chilli dip. When the judges cut into her eggs, they were both oozy and they were surprised that despite all the deeply Thai ingredients, the peppercorn shone through.
With high risk came high reward as Nat impressed the judges, scoring nines across the board for a total of 36 points. Pezza’s efforts earned him 33 points, giving Nat a three-point lead heading into round two.
In round two, Pezza and Nat had to tackle a pressure test set by British superstar chef Clare Smyth, whose restaurants Core in London and Oncore in Sydney have earnt three Michelin stars and three hats respectively. Clare entered the kitchen with an incredible dessert, the “Core-teser”, her high-end take on a Malteser.
When Pezza brought his dish into the judges, he felt like he had let his family and the judges down by not completing the dish. Even though Pezza didn’t have the malt puff on the dish, his entremets looked very good, and the judges could see the layers when they cut it open; every element that made the plate was near perfect.
Nat’s dish looked incredible when it hit the tasting table, her malt puff sitting proudly, with feathers on top. When the judges tasted Nat’s dish, they were surprised; even though everything was on the plate and her flavours were great, there were some textural flaws.
When the judges read their final verdict, they told Pezza that although he was missing the malt puff, his flavours were identical to Clare’s. He scored sevens across the board for a round two score of 35, taking his total to 68 points. Nat needed at least 33 points to take out the win, and she too ended up scoring a seven from each judge, taking her total score to 71 points, beating Pezza by just three points.
In addition to Nat winning the grand prize of $250,000 and a residency at Crown Melbourne’s ALUMNI restaurant, Pezza was awarded $40,000 to go after his food dreams and third place getter Sav Perera took home $10,000 for her efforts.
Upon winning the competition, Nat Thaipun said: “I feel so good, this is crazy! It feels like a dream but it’s not, it just happened, I just won MasterChef Australia.”
Source: Channel Ten media release.
