Colin Fassnidge: ‘I’m not Gordon Ramsay and I don’t want to be’

As he prepares to head up the new Kitchen Nightmares Australia, celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge reveals why he’s done being the TV villain - and why he won’t follow in Gordon Ramsay’s footsteps.

For two years, Colin Fassnidge’s TV career and Sydney restaurant were thrust into turmoil due to the pandemic, so it’s little wonder the Irish chef takes great delight in now finding himself run off his feet. Fresh from the rebooted My Kitchen Rules, Fassnidge will soon be cooking for punters at the races, and fronting Kitchen Nightmares Australia on the Seven Network. But, having had his fill of being the TV villain, Fassnidge reveals to Stellar why he’s in no hurry to be the next Gordon Ramsay

Stellar: You copped a lot of heat because of the way you were initially portrayed on My Kitchen Rules. Was that difficult to navigate?

Colin Fasnidge: My problem with the TV bosses was that no-one tells you that’s going to happen. So, you film the show for half a year and then the next half of the year you are copping grief.

At the start it was very hard, especially [when internet trolls] bring your kids into it. Now, when people ask what my advice is on doing reality TV, I say, “Don’t read the social media.” If you’re in any way having a bad day, the little keyboard warriors don’t care.

S: Did you enjoy working with judge Manu Feildel again on the rebooted MKR series?

CF: Manu? I love Manu. My wife has to kick Manu out of our house on many evenings because we get a bit raucous.

She will be like, “You’ve got to go home.” He lives just down the street, so we do so much stuff together. I think we will have another project together – I can’t say much – in another country in January.

Colin Fassnidge: Pete Evans ‘brought it on himself’ Picture: supplied.

S: What about former MKR judge Pete Evans? Do you also keep in touch with him?

CF: Petey, Petey, Petey. I haven’t heard from him for quite a bit. I think he has to keep his head down because it’s not nice [what he’s faced].

I get on with Pete, I don’t agree with everything he says... well, most of it. But he’s still a dad. It’s not nice to see a whole country turn on him, even though he brought it on himself. But I don’t like to see people bullied.

S: As host of the UK and US versions of Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay was known for his foul language and temper tantrums. Is that something you have tried to replicate as host of the Aussie version?

CF: I used to work for Gordon, actually. I watched the English version religiously, because I thought it was quite tongue-in-cheek and had some good insights. But I had no time for the American version – it was just people trying to cause trouble.

So when the producers would come up to me and say, “Gordon would do this” I’d get a bit sh*tty [and say], “Well, I’m not Gordon, and I don’t want to be.”

I wanted to do it Colin’s way, not Gordon’s way. And I think we’ve done that – if things are bad, we tell [the contestants], but we show them how to make it better.

After two years of fires, droughts and Covid, people are already having a bad time – they don’t need me to come in and make life a disaster.

Colin Fassnidge: ‘I wanted to do it Colin’s way, not Gordon’s way’ Picture: Nigel Wright.

S: As someone who has worked with the man himself, was Gordon’s temper really like what we saw on that show?

CF: He was a very good businessman. He did have his henchmen, but I could cook so I was left alone. If you scream and shout at everyone in the kitchen no-one would want to work for you.

I worked for [renowned French chef] Raymond Blanc before Gordon, and that was a much rougher kitchen.

S: Was TV stardom part of the plan when you arrived in Australia from Ireland?

CF: Not at all. I was one of the biggest knockers of TV chefs because I thought of myself as a real chef. I was working in a restaurant that was two hats and I was sort of famous for being a bit hard. A bit grumpy, I guess. [And then] I got an interview at the Seven Network.

S: As a restaurateur with a bistro in Sydney, you must have done it pretty tough during the pandemic.

CF: The first lockdown was great. I spent all day cooking. I opened a soup kitchen in the restaurant carpark and just fed people for free. I’m glad we did it, just so my kids could see when the sh*t hits the fan, you don’t have to be the person who grabs all the toilet rolls.

But the second one was hard because the restaurant was still closed, there were no TV gigs and all the festivals were closed. I had never been unemployed, so there were a couple of dark days when I’d wake up in the middle of the night, wondering how I would pay the mortgage.

S: With the borders closed, you must have missed being able to go to Ireland to see your friends and family.

CF: I did miss it. My dad has just been diagnosed with early onset dementia and so I went back in March by myself and that was pretty confronting. I went back again in July with the family, and I looked around at the rolling green hills and thought how beautiful Ireland is.

S: You’re designing a menu for guests at Sydney Everest Carnival. How is that different to a restaurant?

CF: It’s like a military operation. When people [arrive], they’re all prim and proper. The menu’s quite light and delicate.

Then, obviously, as the champagne starts flowing the dishes get bigger, and by the end we have great desserts to soak everything up.

Colin Fassnidge features in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee.

S: Did you attend many race days back home in Ireland?

CF: I actually worked on a greyhound track. I went from a two-Michelin-star restaurant [Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxford] to cooking steaks at a track in Dublin because they paid mega dollars – that’s what paid for my ticket to Australia.

Kitchen Nightmares Australia premieres at 7.30pm on October 12 on the Seven Network.

Originally published as Colin Fassnidge: ‘I’m not Gordon Ramsay and I don’t want to be’