George Calombaris’ TV comeback is here, but should it exist?

Three years after admitting his restaurants underpaid employees by $7.8 million, George Calombaris is being welcomed back to his former TV network with open arms. The former MasterChef judge is hosting a new food show on Channel 10.

Hungry, which premiered on Saturday night, sees the disgraced chef “going back to his roots”, exploring different restaurants and food cultures in Melbourne with fellow chef and 2014 MasterChef contestant Sarah Todd.

George Calombaris and Sarah Todd’s new television show Hungry.

The show appears to heavily draw on Calombaris’ softer side. The first episode sees Todd teach Calombaris about Indian cuisine, and at one point features the chef sympathising with an Indian taxi driver about racism in Australia.

In the first scene, while being taken to an Indian grocer, Calombaris says he’s “not happy” that the driver, Satnam, feels he has to use the Anglicised nickname Sam.

Hungry had a very quiet premiere. Network 10 didn’t even issue a media release ahead of time, as is common practice when publicising upcoming shows. And, though there was significant competition with the FIFA World Cup and Victorian election news, the show didn’t crack the top 20 free-to-air programs.

It did, however, receive a significant shoutout on Sunday from network stablemate The Project. Calombaris joined Project co-host Hamish Macdonald for a pre-recorded interview in his former suburb of Oakleigh, which showed him shaking locals’ hands and, in Macdonald’s words, being “treated like a hometown hero”.

The pair discussed the fallout from the underpayment scandal over coffee in the local mall. And though Macdonald directly asked the former restaurateur how much money he had lost and if he thought he had hurt people, Calombaris’ answers were not always so straightforward – and much time was also afforded to how the chef has rebuilt himself over the past few years.

“If I inspire one kid out there never to give up, well then I’ve done my job,” the chef said, speaking about his return to TV.

These comments were met with a mix of sympathy and scepticism from the panel after the segment. Hosts Macdonald and Rachel Corbett spoke broadly against the idea of cancel culture, indicating Calombaris deserved another chance. Whereas guest panellist Bridget Hustwaite questioned some of his responses and comedian Michael Hing, visibly baffled by the whole thing, offered some broader context.

“If I took $7 million from a bank, I’d go to prison,” he said. “But you take it from little people, working and stuff, and suddenly, it’s ‘cancelled’.”

The Victorian government actually introduced laws in 2020, which came into effect in June 2021, that make wage theft a criminal offence, punishable by 10 years in prison for the business owner and $1.1 million for the company if underpayments are found to be deliberate. The first test of these laws has begun, after the Wage Inspectorate Victoria on Friday filed 94 criminal charges against the Macedon Lounge restaurant and its owner Gaurav Setia for allegedly failing to pay more than $7000 owed to four staff members over five months.

But, considering what happened to Calombaris, it would be difficult to argue the celebrity chef was “cancelled” at all. He wasn’t fired from his gig on MasterChef. It was widely reported that he and longtime judges Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston walked after Network 10 refused to increase their salaries (which were already above $1 million) more than 40 per cent. A network spokesperson told this masthead at the time that the judges’ departure was unrelated to the underpayment scandal.

That was July 2019. And by September 2021 he was already back on the network shaking his tail feather as a golden duster on The Masked Singer. This is reportedly about the time he was filming the pilot for Hungry.

A few years between TV shows, during a global pandemic that resulted in many lockdowns that shut down many productions completely, is hardly even a comeback story.

Still, the fact that Channel 10 is backing Calombaris in this way is telling – and it’s safe to assume the network still sees him as a significant asset. Securing a new series on free-to-air TV in 2022 is no mean feat. Ask any of the stars or creators of the network’s faltering Pilot Showcase (formerly Pilot Week), which has seen very few shows commissioned for a full season and none renewed for a second.

Whether that asset will net a worthwhile return is another question entirely.

Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston (neither of whom suffered reputational damage like Calombaris) didn’t have enough star power to make Channel 7’s Plate of Origin work back in 2020. And that was around the same time that MasterChef regained its blockbuster ratings with relatively low-profile new judges at the helm.

Does star power matter anymore? And will the promise of Calombaris’ redemption entice people to watch? I’m not so sure.

But considering how much of the first episode relies on Sarah Todd’s charisma and expertise, it seems like the network could have at least avoided the controversy by just backing the good talent it has.

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