Can cook, can’t surf — Ben’s blistering verdict on Curtis Stone

CHEF Ben O’Donoghue delivers a blistering verdict about great mate Curtis Stone and talks about his role as a judge on Barbecue Heroes.

THE LAST WORD …

WITH CHEF and BARBECUE HEROES JUDGE AND HOST BEN O’DONOGHUE

“AUSSIE Barbecue Heroes is my first regular foray into commercial TV — I did a show called Drive Thru Australia for Channel Ten — but this is my first regular prime-time gig.

It’s interesting — I’ve always been the cook on a show.

This time I’ve ventured into that area of judging — but it’s certainly nice to sit back and have people cook for me.

Barbecues are something we relate to and as a nation; Aussies kind of fancy themselves on the barbecue.

It’s so much part of our culture and probably 300 days of the year is perfect barbecue weather — especially up here in Queensland — the barbecue can get lit most weekends

Does the average Aussie want their barbecue tricked up? I think it’s progressed.

Best of mates ... Celebrity Chefs Curtis Stone & Ben O'Donoghue. Picture: Coles Supermarkets/Steen Vestergaard

You see that with food in general. People’s appreciation of food and their knowledge has grown so much in the past eight years — and that’s partly due to the success of food reality shows like MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules.

People are a lot more aware and media exposed to different flavours, so their tastes have evolved and expanded. They are trying different things.

I loved doing (his first cooking show) Surfing the Menu with Curtis (great mate and fellow chef Curtis Stone).

It’s been revived with (former MasterChef Australia contestants) Hayden Quinn and Dan Churchill. They’ve done some good-natured sledging about being the cool new young generation of the show — and they had a couple of cracks about Curtis’ surfing talent.

“They’re (Quinn and Churchill) are impostors (laughs). Look, obviously the production company who did the original with me and Curtis must have needed some cash flow and reignited the cash cow.

First TV role ... Curtis Stone and Ben O'Donoghue in 2006 on show Surfing The Menu. Picture: Supplied.

I’m keen to see how these young guys go — they obviously think it’s all about the surfing.

I mean, Curtis, you have to cut him slack; the guy never grew up with a surfboard.

I really can’t start defending his surfing skills, but I think I’m the only one with the right to sledge Stoney about his surfing.

But he has more heart than a Mallee bull — we surfed some insane places and he’d paddle out and he just knew he couldn’t do it, but he never gave up.

“Curtis is like the Steve Bradbury of surfing and cooking.

Maybe these young blokes can talk to us when they’ve cooked for POTUS (O’Donoghue has cooked for President Obama) and Oprah (Stone has cooked for the talk show queen). When they’ve got a few stripes on the jersey, then we can talk (laughs). Maybe producers went with them because they thought they couldn’t afford us?

Curtis and I did a Christmas special last year for Channel Seven and that was fun.

It would have been awesome for us to do it again.”

AUSSIE BARBECUE HEROES, TUESDAY, 7.30PM, SEVEN

AACTA AWARDS 2015