MasterChef Australia winner 2024 Nat Thaipun reveals plans for Crown ALUMNI restaurant takeover

The MasterChef Australia winner has been crowned — with bookings for their new Melbourne restaurant already open.

MasterChef Australia winner Nat Thaipun hopes Melbourne embraces her ‘intuitive’ kitchen style and childhood Thai flavours while cooking at Crown Melbourne’s ALUMNI restaurant.

“I can’t follow instructions. I’m more of an intuitive cook, and when I was on MasterChef, I probably should have practised more recipes,” she said.

“My mum doesn’t teach in grams or spoons, it’s all on colour and taste and trying it out. So there are no recipes, but the menu is inspired by my upbringing.”

The Thai-born cook beat Tassie butcher Josh ‘Pezza’ Perry in the reality cooking show’s heart-stopping Grand Finale, which aired on Network Ten on Tuesday night.

Thaipun, who grew up in Sunbury, snared the title after two-rounds of gruelling pressure tests, one involving the recreation of British superstar chef Clare Smyth’s riff on the mind-bending Malteser dessert ‘Core-teser’.

MasterChef Australian winner 2024 Nat Thaipun.

Tassie butcher Josh ‘Pezza’ Perry was named runner-up.

As part of her prize, Thaipun took home $250,000 cash and a two-week residency at Crown Melbourne’s ALUMNI restaurant.

“I’ve created the whole menu, including the signature cocktail, which is a fun take on Sour Patch Kids. My brothers and I love sour lollies, so I recreated the flavour using offcuts of finger lime,” she said.

Expect a unique mix of dishes in Thaipun’s ALUMNI gig, including some MasterChef Australia faves.

“The scotch egg (seen in the finale) will make an appearance, but instead of pork mince I’ll use kangaroo mince instead,” she said.

Thaipun said she hadn’t found any Melbourne restaurants cooking food from her childhood.

“There’s nothing in Melbourne that is a reflection of how I grew up eating Thai food,” she said.

“This is largely because it is shaped by customers, and what westerners expect from Thai food as well. I think the offering is getting really good recently. But in Melbourne it’s either classic Thai restaurants with curries or pad thai, or newer modern-era Thai food.”

“That’s why, on MasterChef I wanted to allow people to be more open minded and not so territorial. A lot of us, want to claim certain dishes to be out own and forget the world is so heavily migrated.”

Nat Thaipun’s Crown Melbourne ALUMNI residency runs from July 18 until August 4. Bookings now open.