George Calombaris speaks candidly on his horror year
GEORGE Calombaris was waiting for court, next to a drug trafficker, when his life flashed before his eyes. An undeniable low point in a horror year, now the MasterChef judge and renowned chef says he's turning his life around.
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CELEBRITY chef George Calombaris says monumental mistakes left him unable to recognise the person he’d become.
Speaking at length to the Sunday Herald Sun about his horror year, Calombaris said it was one filled with regret that he will be thankful to put behind him.
The MasterChef star reveals he contemplated quitting the show for a simpler life, sought advice from a meditation expert and moved his family from their home after he snapped and struck a foul-mouthed fan at the A-League grand final.
— GEORGE CALOMBARIS REVEALS WHY HE PUNCHED FOOTBALL FAN AFTER GRAND FINAL
— MASTERCHEF JUDGE GEORGE CALOMBARIS PLEADS GUILTY TO ASSAULTING TEENAGER AT A-LEAGUE GRAND FINAL
“I still wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about it,” he said.
“When you talk about regrets in life, that is on the top.
“This has probably been the toughest year of my life, professionally.
“The last 21 years of cooking have been amazing, they have been incredibly, amazingly awesome, but I hit a bump in the road this year and that bump, it really shook me up and it really affected me.
“I think I am definitely wiser, I have learnt a lot, I am remorseful about certain things, I have made some mistakes.”
Calombaris said family, especially his wife, had helped get him through.
“I know Natalie is as strong as an ox and her steel has honestly been the reason why I am standing here right now.”
By any measure, Calombaris has enjoyed an extraordinary run of success over the past decade.
Successful restaurant offerings The Press Club, Hellenic Republic, Gazi and Jimmy Grants were backed up by his role on MasterChef and various endorsement deals and ambassadorial roles.
But his relentless forward movement came to a sudden halt in April when Calombaris’s Made Establishment was found to have underpaid 160 staff to the tune of $2.6 million.
Then in May, he assaulted a soccer fan at the A-League grand final, copping a conviction and $1000 fine in court last month.
Calombaris says he is “very proud” to have finalised payment to his staff and is appealing the assault conviction.
The star chef is still at a loss to explain his out-of-character action at the A-League grand final.
“That was a monumental mistake from me,” he said.
“Regardless of what people said, my actions should have been (to) walk away. Going to court was the hardest thing ever. I am standing ... in my three-piece suit and on one side of me is someone up for domestic violence and on the other a drug trafficker. Your life starts flashing in front of you and you start going ‘Why?’ How did I get here?
“I am a glass half-full type of person, and I am looking at it as the point where everything had to change.”
Knowing he had to get “off the hamster wheel of just go, go, go, go”, he contemplated quitting MasterChef.
“Honestly, yes, at that point,” he said. “But what I valued and what I was excited by was that Ten (MasterChef’s broadcaster) put their hand out and said we are behind you and we are going to support you through this. It made me value MasterChef even more.”
A deeply proud and protective father and husband, Calombaris moved his family out of home in the days following his soccer fracas as a media storm brewed.
“I did not want my boy, who is six, to come home and there is a camera stuck in the car. So as a precaution, I moved them to my in-laws,” he said.
Calombaris also had internationally renowned meditation expert Jonni Pollard fly from LA to Melbourne to help “reset” him.
“I had probably had a good month of sleepless nights at that point. We flew Jonni out from LA to spend a week with me and it was just intense and that probably was one thing that helped me a lot, meditation. It was this intense lockdown time to deal with this (what had gone wrong in 2017) and what I did on the night of the A-League grand final,” he said.
“It made me realise I am not Teflon, I am not made of steel, and to really identify my weaknesses and put good people around me.”
He said the consequences of his soccer actions hit hard personally and professionally.
“Two ambassadorships dumped me and I was devastated,” he said.
“One of them I was with for 12 years and that really hurt me.
“It was not about the money. It had nothing to do with the money.
“Life is about giving people chances. I was gutted.
“I said, ‘I was with you for 12 years and 11.9 years of that was fantastic and suddenly when it gets a little bit hard, isn’t that when you see the true reason of partnership?’.”
In an effort to help spread the load of his business empire, Calombaris brought in former Swisse Vitamins CEO Radek Sali as major shareholder in the Made empire.
“I am so thankful for my past business partners,” Calombaris said.
“Radek is probably one of the first people professionally in my life that was not probing me about my cooking, but probing me about where do you want to be and what do you want to do.
“So suddenly you sit there and make a plan with objectives and structure and process and you say, ‘Well you can’t do that the way we were running it’. Our head office was under a staircase, there was no CEO, there were over 300 staff.
“Back then all I cared about was the customer, the customer, the customer, because that is what you learn as a young cook; you are cooking great food for the customer (and) you will do whatever you have to do to put the best food on the plate.
“Now my total objective is one thing and one thing only and that is the staff.”
Calombaris is determined to set up a mental health support network for the hospitality industry and is establishing the Made Foundation to manage the business’s charitable and community donations and support.
He is also working with La Trobe University to develop a Hellenic Health menu, based on the Mediterranean diet of a 4:1 ratio of plant-based foods to meat, that will be integrated into the offerings at his Hellenic Republic restaurants.
The Made Establishment is expanding, with plans for several Hellenic Republic and Gazi restaurants to open in Sydney. Brisbane is also in their sights.
Hellenic Republic will open in Brighton next month. Jimmy Grants will also open in St Kilda and Eastland this year, having opened two restaurants in Sydney a few weeks ago.
“Creativity is what got me to this point but for some reason I forgot about creativity in the last couple of years,” he said. “My diary is never empty, but now there are things in my diary where I get to go to the gym, I get to meditate, I get to do things for George.”
One of those non-negotiables is coaching his son James’s soccer team each Sunday.
“I am now kicking the ball again in the backyard like I used to,” Calombaris said.
He said he was very much looking forward to closing the door on 2017.
“2017 will be done on the 31st of December at 11.59pm. It is done. It is dusted. I have learnt. We have learnt,” Calombaris said.
“I am just super excited about the prospects of next year.”
Originally published as George Calombaris speaks candidly on his horror year
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