Curtis Stone expands foodie empire in Australia and America

The Aussie chef is growing his global foodie fuelled empire opening a Melbourne base, exploring wine making and filming TV shows in Australia and America.

Curtis Stone with Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo appears in the 2022 series of MasterChef Australia. Picture: Channel 10

Super chef Curtis Stone is expanding his foodie fuelled empire in Australia and America.

Stone, who returns to MasterChef Australia as a guest judge on Wednesday (May 4) and Thursday (May 5) this week, owns a small vineyard as part of a rural property he recently purchased in Miami and is exploring winemaking.

He is also filming Crime Scene Chef in Atlanta and will be part of a reboot on MKR later this year.

While he has no current plans to open a signature restaurant in Australia his event company Curtis Stone Events will be setting up a commercial base in Bridge Road, Richmond.

“We have taken out the lease, it is not for a restaurant though, it is Curtis Stone Events,” Stone said.

“We started the events company in the US maybe seven or eight years ago and we launched the Australian arm of that maybe six months before the pandemic kicked in.

“We are rebounding out of the pandemic and everybody has two years of events they want to do, so events are a hot commodity right now and we are loving that business.

“We needed to get some space just so we had a bigger footprint as a commissary to produce all the food we do for events.”

Curtis Stone was in Melbourne in January to film his appearance in the 2022 series of MasterChef Australia. Picture: Channel 10

Stone was in Melbourne in January to film his role on MasterChef, a show he has appeared on each year since it launched in 2009 making him something of a MasterChef elder.

It also means he saw a number of this year’s returning favourites when they made their original runs at the MasterChef title in prior seasons.

“I have been involved in every season and it has been really cool to watch it evolve and change over the years. What I love about it is that positive energy the show has,” he said.

“They have managed to keep a really good strong culture among their contestants, the way they are super supportive of each other I really love that.

“It is an easy one (show) to say ‘yes’ to because I love it and it doesn’t take a tonne of my time, and it gets me back to Australia, which I like because I get to see my family.”

Stone will be back in Australia in June.