‘MasterChef’: Gordon Ramsay on Guest Judges, Firefighters, and Other Season 7 Surprises
If you can’t stand the heat, call in the fire department. Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen competition series MasterChef is back for Season 7, boasting a wildly diverse assortment of home cooks—including four firefighters, a private investigator, a tuxedo salesman, a frat guy, a pro poker player who’s won $9 million and Miss San Diego 2015. We got the hot dish, Ramsay style.
Longtime judge Graham Elliot is out and replaced with a rotating team of guest judges, including superchefs Wolfgang Puck, Edward Lee and Aarón Sánchez. How will that change the show?
The level of talent among today’s home cooks is so spectacular it’s scary. It’s no longer some niche thing, so we have to raise the bar. Bringing in a variety of fantastically experienced judges makes it an ever tougher competition. And they don’t just stand there taste-testing—they’re jackets off, hands on, and they get right in there with the home cooks. It’s a priceless education.
RELATED: Gordon Ramsay Checks Back In to Hotel Hell
What’s up with all the firefighters?
Your local firehouse is often the best kitchen in town these days and better than most fine restaurants. It’s a reflection of what’s happening in America.
The winner gets $250,000 and a cookbook deal, though many also use this show to try to turn pro. Do you wish you’d had reality TV back in the day to give your career a jump start?
Not really. There’s something to be said for climbing the ladder steadily. The more you learn, the longer you’ll succeed. Our show can certainly catapult you into the food business but, if you fly too high too fast, you’ve got a problem. We want to teach and inspire our home cooks, not encourage them to march off and try to be a head chef somewhere. Too much ambition will bite you in the ass.
RELATED: What Hell’s Kitchen Host Gordon Ramsay Eats Off Camera
Aren’t the MasterChef contestants feeling a little insecure after seeing all those phenomenal kids on MasterChef Junior? [Laughs]
They should be very nervous! Kids have no fear. They’re like open vessels, all ready to experience and learn, while the adults come to us all jacked up with preconceived ideas. If you try to learn piano side-by-side with a 7-year-old, that little kid will learn way quicker than you. It’s the same with chefs. Let’s put it this way: If we were to put our juniors up against the adults, I don’t think the adults would win.
MasterChef, Season Premiere, Wednesday, June 1, 8/7c, Fox
Gordon Ramsay
Joe Bastianich
Tiffany Derry
Nico Cosereanu
Aghata Sunsi
Basia Newman
Ted Pappa
Julia Cili
Foo Nguyen
Aishu Challa
Daniel Meng
Shompa Kabir-Furqan
Jaime Tan
Peter Egede
Nora Chakris
Dave Patera
Rita Igbinoba
Heidi Muston
Camilo Chavez
Tkaiya Dryden
Jake Kelley
Britny Underwood
Maria Bourland
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Conversation10 Comments
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G
I don't think I can watch the Kid version any more. It's just not realistic in any way.
Man, what would FOX do without Gordon Ramsey?
11 years of relying on him! Wow.
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C
The one really good thing about MasterChef Junior is that he watches his language around the kids and they don't have to bleep out every other word he says. I don't mind a swear word here and there, but it gets rather tiresome listening to an hour of nothing but "bleep, bleep, bleep!"
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G
I think it's so much better if they just make it silent versus a beep.
But I suppose the beeps make the swears seem more scandalous.
I'm surprised FOX doesn't have a spin off network for Gordon alone!
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C
The ratings of his shows aren't really that great. They're just cheap filler to bridge the gaps between the more expensive scripted shows.
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G
Isn't that the FOXy truth!
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C
It seems to me that MC Junior is about as "real" as the adult version; i.e., has as much heavy-handed manipulation by production. Having said that, I do enjoy the kid version better because the vast majority of the kids haven't learned to say ugly and vindictive things about their competition like the adults do. Also, the kid version is more fun because the judges allow themselves to be food-slimed one episode a season.
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C
Gordon may swear a lot IRL, but I think mean Gordon is an amped-up TV persona. He's genuinely nice during the Hell's Kitchen rewards where the winning team gets to spend time with him and pick his brain.
I find him very entertaining, bleeped words and all.
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G
I agree that the adult version is probably just as fake! But IDK, it just drives me nuts to see these kids knowing so many weird ingredients that I have never heard of. Not only do they know the ingredients, but supposedly have tasted them?
I do like how the kids help each other and are nice to each other.
But I just can't watch it any more. I'd much rather watch them make more normal food and cooking techniques that maybe I could actually use. I'm getting sick of seeing so many things that I would never use, never heard of or would even want to try.
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C
It doesn't bother me that the kids know way more about food than I ever will. lol. I have rather simple tastes when it comes to food, and I know I would never be able to replicate some (most?) of the cooking techniques they use. I just marvel that they're so passionate about food and cooking and know so much at such a young age.
For a while, I read the blog of a contestant from one of the early seasons of MC, as he commented on the following season's episodes. It was eye-opening to get the dirt on how the show is run and the things that production did to stress out the contestants and create drama.
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G
I'd say my tastes in food are very simple as well. Most of those weird ingredients I wouldn't even want to try!
It is very cool to be that good and passionate that young, can't argue with that.
Now that blog sounds very interesting!
I haven't watched last night's show yet.
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