Miguel Maestre on his ‘crazy bull’ energy for Ready Steady Cook and the future of The Living Room
Miguel Maestre has revealed how he harnessed “crazy bull” energy for his first solo hosting gig without his Living Room buddies, on a cooking show with a storied history.
National
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Fittingly enough for the man nicknamed ‘El Toro Loco’, Miguel Maestre says he is taking the bull by the horns in his first solo TV hosting gig.
The Spanish-born celebrity chef, whose moniker translates to ‘the crazy bull’, has been embraced by Aussie audiences for more than a decade as a key member of the The Living Room, alongside Amanda Keller, Chris Brown and Barry DuBois.
But with the quadruple Logie-winning lifestyle show taken off air in 2022, Maestre is facing up to the reality of going it alone, by hosting a reboot of the much-loved cooking show Ready Steady Cook, without his long-time friends and colleagues.
The step up took some getting used to – and trial and error – but he took to heart some advice from his mother, who he describes as tough and caring, and with whom he is still very close, despite her living half a world away in Murcia.
“My mum told me this – ‘try to be yourself, because nobody is going to be better at being you than you’,” the ebullient Spaniard says. “It’s a massive new role for me because I have been used to being a co-host with Chris, Barry and Amanda and our friendship was a bit of a safety net for us on TV because we were really good at bouncing off each other.
“But taking the bull by the horns, I’m not going to lie to you, the first few shows I had to learn how to harness all the energy of the crazy bull to make sure I could take this audience on this journey with me.”
Ever since he left his homeland as a curious and adventurous 21-year-old, first travelling to Scotland where he started to cook and learn English, Maestre says he has lived his life by leaping into the unknown – and even at the age of 44 says he is constantly trying to reinvent himself.
“I live my life with a challenge every day, one challenge at a time,” he says. “I went for a swim yesterday and it was a king tide so I was shitting myself but I still did it. Fear of the unknown has always been feeding my growth as a person. Remember, I came to this country as an immigrant and I couldn’t even really speak English and today I am the host of Ready Steady Cook.”
The original Ready Steady Cook has long been an institution in England, where it aired for 32 seasons, beginning in 1994. It has a storeyed history in Australia too, with three previous iterations over the last two decades, hosted by former chef Nick Stratford (2005), Peter Everett (2006-2011) and comedian Colin Lane (2011-2013).
And while Maestre says he is familiar with the earlier versions – UK host Ainsley Herriot sent him a note saying he would be “wonderful” for the role and he even appeared as a guest chef on the homegrown version in 2009 – but, like any good cook whipping up a classic dish, he says he wants to bring his own flavour to the tried and tested format.
“When you’re a chef, a carbonara has basic ingredients but you have to do something to it to own it,” Maestre says. “We chefs are creative people so we are always trying to put our own spin on everything we do. So I am trying to do something new with the show.
“It’s like reopening a restaurant that used to be closed. You come in as a head chef and you are trying to keep the main course that everybody loves and the dessert that it is well known for – but you have to be very careful when you take over something that used to be successful and change a little bit of the tuning.”
The Ready Steady Cook format gathers some of the country’s best chefs – including Adriano Zumbo, Hayden Quinn, Anna Polyviou, Khanh Ong, Mindy Woods, Sarah Todd, Sergio Perera, Diana Chan, Alastair McLeod, Mike Reid, Adam D’Sylva and Alice Zaslavsky – and pairs them up with everyday Aussie home cooks.
Split into two teams – Capsicum and Tomato – they are then tasked with rustling up delicious dishes using only five ingredients (and pantry supplies). The team that wins after the strict 20-minute cook time, is decided by a live studio audience. And in a final round, the two chefs face off in the Chef’s Challenge, where their skills are put to the test in a 10-minute fast round to win the coveted Bronze Ladle.
“We get to see all of these everyday stories of everyday Australians shining through the home cooks at the same time that they are cooking. And it’s a really fun format because the dynamic of it is a continuous bouncing.
“Tennis is a great analogy because the ball keeps bouncing from one kitchen to another and I am trying to make sure that in 20 minutes we get to find out the story of the home cooks, the projects of the chefs, their love for the kitchen, how they cook at home, how you make a beurre blanc sauce, what is the perfect way to marinate salmon, how do you do a crispy skin snapper.”
The recent live tapings of Ready Steady Cook also gave Maestre a chance to professionally reunite with Keller, who is one of a number of celebrity guests on the show. He’s still in regular contact with his former Living Room colleagues – even Chris “Gringo” Brown, who jumped ship from Channel 10 to Channel 7 last year – and says they will remain friends for life.
“We were texting just last night saying ‘when are we going to catch up for our next dinner’,” he says. “So we do put in an effort and friendships like that never die. We were 11 years in each other’s faces so I think it will stay that way forever.”
But whether The Living Room will be back at some point, Maestre would be there in a heartbeat but acknowledges that the decision is above his pay grade.
“I am just a humble chef trying to make a living,” he says. “I wish I knew what TV people think but I’d go back to The Living Room to cook any time. It was the best TV experience of my life but it doesn’t really come down to me as a decision.”
He’s also in no hurry to revisit his experience of “jumping out of helicopters and eating worms and being really hungry” on Channel 10 stablemate I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of here, despite being crowned champion in the 2020 season and winning $100,000 for his chosen charity R U OK. He does, however, think he’d get a better go now that Robert Irwin has replaced Brown, who once hilariously scared the pants off Maestre with a fake crocodile, as Julia Morris’ co-host.
“You could not pay me enough money to go 30 days without eating food,” he says with a laugh. “It was an amazing experience but one of those things where you do it once, do it well and then move on to the next thing.
“I made really great friends. Just like week I went to my friend Daisy Thomas’ wedding and I was there sitting with Rhonda (Burchmore) and Billy Brownless, so I forged great friendships out of there but I’m not sure if I’ll do it again. Chris was always playing tricks on me – I think if I go now, Rob would love me and would be so nice to me and I think I would get better treatment.”
Ready Steady Cook, March 8, 7.30pm, Channel 10
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