Curtis Stone reveals why he turned down MasterChef judge role
Ahead of his guest judge appearance on Masterchef, Melbourne-born chef Curtis Stone reveals why he knocked back the opportunity to be a full-time judge on the hit show and why his family is contemplating a return to Australia.
Fiona Byrne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Fiona Byrne. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Curtis Stone has a lot on his plate. The Melbourne-born, US-based Michelin-starred chef, author and TV presenter has pivoted his LA restaurants Maude and Gwen to marketplaces and the venues are doing home-delivered meals to survive the COVID-19 lockdown. And he’s also adapting his Australian company, Curtis Stone Events, into a home-delivered meal business. Meanwhile, he and his wife Lindsay Price are homeschooling their sons Hudson, 8, and Emerson, 5, from their California base and contemplating a move home to Australia. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald Sun, as he returns to MasterChef Australia as a guest judge, Stone reveals the dish that helped him woo his wife, how a birthday party in Vegas gave him his break in the US, why family is his silver lining in the COVID-19 crisis, and his “mix of emotions” at being asked to join the new-look MasterChef.
FIONA BYRNE: How are your US businesses, Gwen and Maude, coping with the COVID-19 crisis?
CURTIS STONE: Restaurants here were dealt a pretty brutal hand. We got told about the forced closure at 2pm (on March 15) and it became effective at midnight. There was really not much time to prepare or get ready for what was coming and unfortunately restaurants just live on the fringe. They are relatively high turnover, small margin businesses and those two things aren’t very attractive to investors, which is why everyone tells you you are crazy to go into your own restaurant to begin with. The truth is there is not a lot of fat, there is not a lot of cushion there. We went very quickly from a business that had a decent turnover to one that virtually had none. My attitude has always been you have to take care of your team first and foremost. We have pivoted to a marketplace and are doing home-cooked take out meals. With the butcher’s shop (Gwen) we are selling eggs, milk, fruit, vegetables and, of course, meat, and all the staples that restaurants have. We are probably making 40 to 50 to 60 deliveries a day. We are cooking pot pies and bolognese sauce that we probably never imagined we would cook in the restaurant (Maude) but we are doing it happily and are filling a need for people who can’t or don’t want to get out and also keeping a lot of our team still in a job.
FB: Everyone is trying to find some silver lining in the COVID-19 lockdown. Is being able to spend more time with your family your silver lining?
CS: Absolutely. Linds (his wife Lindsay) is doing an amazing job of being a homeschool teacher, mother, compassionate wife; she is doing it all at the moment, she is being a champ. The kids are having the time of their lives because they get her 24/7 and me a lot more than normal, so they are really happy. I am still going into work a lot trying to keep that rolling, but I have not been on a trip in some time and I am normally travelling a fair bit. I have a list of handyman jobs that I promise I will get to.
FB: Can you see a day when you will relocate your family to Australia?
CS: Who knows. Now more than ever you think about that stuff and I think about being close to my parents and my family. When you look at the numbers where people have been affected (by COVID-19), in America we have a couple of thousand people a day we are losing to this virus and in Australia we still have really manageable numbers, and the fact that we are an island and can control things in a different way; there is a lot to love about Australia when you sit around and think about it all right now. We are thinking about things long term, for sure. So yes, lots of discussions in my house.
FB: I believe you wooed your wife by cooking an irresistible dish on your second date. So is food the way to someone’s heart?
CS: It is true. She was a whisky drinker which I found out on our first date and I made her a chocolate and whisky mousse, which she really liked. I think when you cook for someone you are taking care of them, you are looking after them, and I think that is a pretty attractive quality. So I think food can be the way to someone’s heart, for sure.
FB: Who have been the biggest influences on your career?
CS: So many people. Obviously I cooked for Marco Pierre White for eight years and he was a huge inspiration to me as a kid before I even worked for him. There are so many great chefs both in Australia and beyond. I am also inspired by people who care about the ocean and farmers who care about their animals and people who grow things. Food producers in general, they have a craft, they learn it, they nurture it, love it and take care of it and it takes care of them.
FB: I know you love footy. Can you still kick a Sherrin and did playing footy help you become a top chef.
CS: I absolutely can, I love it and I am teaching my boys with lots of pride. My son and I are doing his school project on Australia and the first thing he wanted to talk about was Aussie rules football, because his mates don’t know anything about it, so I am still flying the flag. The reason why I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from team sports, and it is not just footy, but footy is a good example of it, is you do band together as a team. You go out and put it all on the line, you have to look out for each other, you have to use your voice and speak up, and there are natural leaders and natural followers. When you get into the workplace it is very similar. In an environment like a restaurant you have to be able to rely on your teammates.
FB: What are your thoughts on the Back To Win format of MasterChef Australia?
CS: We fell in love with some of those contestants along the way so it is nice to see them back in the kitchen again. It is not like an All-Stars, necessarily, it is people who got close so they have got some talent and that is cool. MasterChef has always been about really good cooking and good, positive enthusiasm and this group of contestants has that in spades.
FB: You were asked to be one of the full time judges on MasterChef Australia following the departure of Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan. Why did you say no?
CS: This show films for a very long time and I have too many commitments to carve out that much time. It was not ever going to be possible for me, unfortunately. I won’t lie, it is a mix of emotions for me. I am good friends with George and obviously get along really well with Matt and Gary and to watch the whole unfolding of old judges and new judges, there are some complex sorts of feelings there, but I am really happy for the guys who got the opportunity, Jock (Zonfrillo), Melissa (Leong) and Andy (Allen), and I think they are doing a wonderful job.
FB: How important is a show like MasterChef in the current COVID-19 lockdown?
CS: Oh my god, there could not be a more important time (for it). A show like this, not only is it super positive, which is what the world needs right now, it is also super topical. We are all cooking every single night. No one is going to restaurants. There are lots of good things that are coming out of this crazy time and one of those is being close to our families and taking the time to cook and care for each other and it is a really inspiring moment for MasterChef.
FB: You were a contestant on reality show The Apprentice. How do you think you would have fared on a cooking show like MasterChef?
CS: I would have smashed it. I have been around cooking competitions now for some years and it is a very different muscle than doing what I do in a restaurant setting. I don’t have any recipes that take 30 minutes or 60 minutes. Most of the stuff we make in the restaurant have processes that last a day or two. With cooking competitions it is a bit more of a sport, it is ‘what can you do in 30 minutes or 60 minutes’, or some short period of time. I think some good chefs would probably be quite lost in competitions like MasterChef. I am not sure if I am one of them or not. I would hope I am nimble enough to do something dynamic and quick but a lot of my stuff does take much longer for sure.
FB: Take Home Chef was your entry point into TV in the US. Was part of the reason you said yes to filming the pilot so that you could spend your birthday in Las Vegas?
CS: It is actually the only reason why I took the job. I was living in London, but I was filming Surfing the Menu in Australia with Ben (O’Donoghue). We had just come back from a surf, we were on a beach and as I went to pick up my towel the phone rang and it was this American guy who wanted to pitch the show to me. You can imagine how ridiculous it sounded. I had no real interest in coming to America other than I wanted to have my 30th birthday in Vegas. I had even booked the suite at the Bellagio where we were going to have the party but I had not booked my flights. Then this guy pitched the show and said, ‘you go to a grocery store and walk up to some young lady and offer to cook her dinner and go back to her house and surprise her husband’. It just sounded so far fetched. They wanted to shoot the pilot later in the year. I asked if we could do it in November and I thought, ‘beautiful, I will get them to fly me over and then I can jump on a plane to Vegas for my birthday’. So that is what I did and ended up doing 140 episodes of Take Home Chef and I never came home.
FB: Any advice for people keen to make food their career?
CS: Food has become so broad. You can be a chef and you can work in restaurants or hotels or hospitals, the catering industry is huge now, there are food stylists, editorial work, home economists, meal kits and food science and it goes on and on and on. It is not just, ‘Do I want to be a chef?’, it is actually, ‘Do I want to work with food?’, and if you do there are a tonne of opportunities.
FB: What would have happened all those years ago if Marco Pierre White had said, “Sorry, no, no jobs going here” when you asked him for a job.
CS: I don’t know. I have never stopped to contemplate it. I don’t think I would have necessarily taken no for an answer. I probably would have just kept knocking on the door until I got my chance. The only reason I moved to London was to go and work for him, a little bit of a shallow plan because I had no opening there, but it fell into my lap when I went and walked through the door. I guess it is a good lesson; you have to be prepared to front up and walk through the door.
MasterChef Australia: Back To Win featuring Curtis Stone airs Thursday at 7.30pm on Channel 10.
RELATED:
WHY YOU SHOULD GIVE CHICKEN FEET ICE CREAM A CHANCE
MELISSA LEONG OPENS UP ABOUT BEING MASTERCHEF’S NEW JUDGE