MasterChef’s Jock Zonfrillo confirms his Adelaide Orana restaurant will never reopen

He had hinted the restaurant may reopen post-COVID, but now MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo has revealed: Orana in Adelaide is closed for good.

Jock Zonfrillo at Restaurant Orana, which has now closed permanently.

• Jock closes Orana

MasterChef judge and restaurateur, Jock Zonfrillo, has confirmed his Adelaide Orana restaurant is closed permanently.

While the Scottish-born chef had suggested in recent months that he was eager to reopen the doors to his showcase of Indigenous Australian ingredients, he revealed on Instagram that he would not be renewing his Rundle St lease.

“With our lease ending in a couple of months and the current restrictions meaning we can’t even break even, our closure has become permanent,” Zonfrillo said.

“As we packed up our little restaurant back in March, with ex-staff coming in to help out the team, we had no idea how long this thing would last for, none of us thought it would mean the end.

“With the uncertainty of tourism and hospitality it’s not the right time for Orana 2.0 so the plans we had started discussing have been put on ice.”

Jock Zonfrillo: “With our lease ending in a couple of months and the current restrictions meaning we can’t even break even, our closure has become permanent.”

In an interview with The Advertiser in September, Zonfrillo described the current COVID-19 restrictions as challenging for any future for his restaurant.

“We’re not the only people experiencing that pain,” he said.

“You’ve just got to keep doing the right thing and when the time’s right we’ll have a set of options in front of us to decide how to proceed.”

Zonfrillo, 44, and his wife Lauren are currently living in Melbourne, having sold their $1.2 million Adelaide Hills home at the end of July. Together they have a two-and-a-half-year old son, Alfie, and are expecting another child.

“For the first time in my life I’m spending more time at home cooking for my family, rather than customers,” Zonfrillo shares in an interview, published in Binge this coming Sunday.

“We’re nesting and getting ready for the baby. We’re making sure the room’s set up and talking to Alfie about it.”