Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload, the podcast past weep that line. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: guys to TV Reload. As you may know, my name
Speaker 1: is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get
Speaker 1: all the inside goss on the popular TV shows that
Speaker 1: you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our
Speaker 1: TV sets are still a major part of our home entertainment,
Speaker 1: and yet very little is known about how our favorite
Speaker 1: shows get made. So each episode, I've been finding guests
Speaker 1: that want to dive just that little bit deeper to
Speaker 1: the shows that they're currently making, so that you can
Speaker 1: hear all their exclusive stories and gain access to some
Speaker 1: of the biggest names in Australian television. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for downloading or subscribing to this podcast however
Speaker 1: you've found me. I really do love hearing your feedback,
Speaker 1: so if you can leave a review or a comment
Speaker 1: on your chosen podcast platform. On today's episode of TV Reload,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Gareth Whitten, who was the winner of
Speaker 1: Dessertmasters Australia for twenty twenty three. The spin off from
Speaker 1: Mastership Australia finished a few weeks ago and I've been
Speaker 1: really looking forward to sharing this exciting look back at
Speaker 1: his time on the show. Gareth, as you may know,
Speaker 1: is a very well known chef with eighteen years worth
Speaker 1: of experience. After working in some of the world's best restaurants,
Speaker 1: he started baking cakes at home during Melbourne's COVID nineteen lockdown. Quickly,
Speaker 1: his neighbors and shortly the whole of Melbourne were lining
Speaker 1: up to taste his delicious goods, which soon evolved into
Speaker 1: the opening of two tuts and on locations, which landed
Speaker 1: him in a role as a guest judge on mastershef
Speaker 1: Australia in twenty twenty two and the opportunity to compete
Speaker 1: for the bragging rights of the dessert world in this
Speaker 1: latest televised competition. I will find out about his relationship
Speaker 1: with his fellow competitors and why he thinks keeping it
Speaker 1: simple at times helped him win the show. Gareth will
Speaker 1: also talk about the effects that COVID had on the
Speaker 1: cooking world and why he felt disillusioned by the whole industry.
Speaker 1: If you've ever wondered what kind of preparation and planning
Speaker 1: goes into these cooking shows, Gareth will also share what
Speaker 1: dishes he'd already locked in prior to filming the series. Plus,
Speaker 1: we will get plenty of exclusives from behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of Dessert Masters, which is still available to watch on
Speaker 1: Tenplay if you have missed any of those delicious episodes. Anyway, guys,
Speaker 1: let's bring Gareth into the podcast and I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy this very exciting unpacking of the most exciting cooking
Speaker 1: show of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Min My hair literally just woke up.
Speaker 1: Hair. Yeah, no, that's totally fine. I mean, what do
Speaker 1: you do when you win Dessert Masters. I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: had some like a like a decastage of wine. Maybe.
Speaker 3: Well, we yeah, we have a few biers, some people around.
Speaker 3: We had a little bit of a viewing party at
Speaker 3: sort of like a friend's workspace. Things was really good,
Speaker 3: like a few big screen TV. Some catering was good
Speaker 3: and then yeah, a couple of drinks afterwards, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's nice to spend it with some friends and family.
Speaker 1: I don't even know you, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: wish that I was invited to that.
Speaker 2: Ah, I wish i'd been beforehand.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations mate on winning Dessert Masters. This is wild.
Speaker 3: It is, it really is. I guess like kind of
Speaker 3: like semi prepared for this with the the half knowledge
Speaker 3: and what the.
Speaker 2: Result may be.
Speaker 3: I felt pretty confident coming out of the cook and
Speaker 3: then hearing a lot of reassurance from the guys who
Speaker 3: were watching from the gantry, et cetera, et cetera. Plus
Speaker 3: there's always a lot of that speculation really entirely sure
Speaker 3: is exactly how.
Speaker 2: It was going to pan out. So it was a
Speaker 2: nice surprise.
Speaker 1: There was a few people saying that you might have
Speaker 1: Stephen bradburied the thing because in a way, everyone else
Speaker 1: was making things a little bit more complicated to make
Speaker 1: it more sensationalized. Where you learned throughout the competition to
Speaker 1: really stay in your lane, and that's kind of how
Speaker 1: you ended up winning, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to downplay my efforts to
Speaker 3: say that word I did was manipulative or I flew
Speaker 3: under the radar.
Speaker 2: There was a bit of that, for sure.
Speaker 3: I played to my strengths, and I think that's the
Speaker 3: thing that you really kind of got to do. And
Speaker 3: especially when you're talking about like sticking to your guns
Speaker 3: and any Bowdie talked a lot about this because one
Speaker 3: thing I knew that he was hesitant to join the
Speaker 3: competition with was the fact that he's known for doing
Speaker 3: things that are wholesome and generous and bordering on rusty,
Speaker 3: especially in its appearance. But like the focus is so
Speaker 3: honed in on flavor and how things are to eat
Speaker 3: and what they mean, and that they're relevant at a
Speaker 3: particular time of a meal or a particular setting in
Speaker 3: which it served. And I think for me as well,
Speaker 3: like I definitely that's very much a part of my
Speaker 3: philosophy as a chef, is that it's relevance and its
Speaker 3: importance in a meal setting is paramount. Things are tasty,
Speaker 3: and I get like deliciousness and flavor and other thing
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff is like that should always be
Speaker 3: at the forefront of food, regardless of what it is
Speaker 3: you're doing. But having anything, but I do think that
Speaker 3: there was a certain thing like.
Speaker 2: And everyone did. Everyone really wanted to celebrate that on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: But I kind of felt as though, especially in the
Speaker 3: public eye, so again like I'm not going to get
Speaker 3: another rabbit hole and and read Reddit, Twitter, Instagram.
Speaker 2: There's people going to have their opinions. Is always going
Speaker 2: to exist.
Speaker 1: You can't read any of those, mate, because you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that Reddit existed though. It was so wild,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was in a reality yeah, eleven
Speaker 1: years ago, and I was like, maybe I'll type in
Speaker 1: my name and don't. It's like the stuff that's on
Speaker 1: Reddit is obviously it's a different category to itself. It's
Speaker 1: it's like nice on Twitter. It's like they're trying to
Speaker 1: compete for what's the worst thing that I can say about?
Speaker 2: What? What did I do to you? What have I
Speaker 2: done people?
Speaker 1: I've worked out that they what they're saying online about
Speaker 1: people they don't know is actually what they think of themselves.
Speaker 1: That's what I think.
Speaker 2: Probably, Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 3: I think you read it with that mindset, you make
Speaker 3: a lot more sense because like a lot of stuffy're
Speaker 3: saying is fucking nonsense, and a lot of it I
Speaker 3: think a lot of it comes from a place of
Speaker 3: passionate enthusiasm that sort of stuff, as well as like
Speaker 3: I think a lot of that of patriot that I'm always.
Speaker 2: Going to you know, probably a crew online comes.
Speaker 3: More from a place of who they like more so
Speaker 3: than subjectively disliking me. Except I said, I found one
Speaker 3: person who just really just did not they did not
Speaker 3: like me at all and I don't sort of like
Speaker 3: I'm only doing enough to scrape by, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I like. And the other thing as well, is like, yeah,
Speaker 3: they did try and pit me as the like the
Speaker 3: flavor guy, and I was like like thanks, Like that's
Speaker 3: nice because in that sense, you're just saying that my
Speaker 3: food is delicious, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: The value it well, it's kind of a different thing
Speaker 1: as well. Being on a TV show is different to
Speaker 1: sort of the reviews that you're going to get, like
Speaker 1: on a menu log. I'm so out of it, but
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Like when you're a
Speaker 1: restauranteur and you are needing to interact with the people
Speaker 1: to come into your restaurant, so you want to read
Speaker 1: that because there can be some constructive criticism. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a different sessialon do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it's different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, I don't remember.
Speaker 3: I don't remember you eating this, but you know, thanks,
Speaker 3: like you know you know what I mean, Like that's
Speaker 3: sounds awful, Like well you didn't, how do you know
Speaker 3: I can eat it?
Speaker 2: Idiot? Oh?
Speaker 3: And like this I mean again like getting cut down
Speaker 3: because I didn't like in the in the semi final,
Speaker 3: I mean people, Yeah, they didn't know what to hate on,
Speaker 3: Like did I play it safe? Because I did a
Speaker 3: relatively conservative plate of dessert and I didn't make a
Speaker 3: bird cage or a bonds eye tree or a log.
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't try and wow the judges with
Speaker 3: like to the I just made a tasty plate of
Speaker 3: food that I thought fit the brief really well. And
Speaker 3: I kind of thought I nailed it in that respect.
Speaker 3: I know also because they were like, oh, but the vegetables,
Speaker 3: like you're too many fells, Like you didn't eat this,
Speaker 3: it's a dessert, and like you know that in.
Speaker 1: Years to come, though, we'll have one of those not
Speaker 1: smell of smell of vision and taste vision, you know,
Speaker 1: one of those finals, you know, challenges where everyone you
Speaker 1: know you're cooking for so many people the TV screen
Speaker 1: or just hand out one of the one of the tarts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, like a Willy wonkle when the snowsbreeze tastes
Speaker 3: like you licked the wallpaper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just lick your TV screen.
Speaker 3: Then you might actually have a bit more of a
Speaker 3: a fair adjudication of what it is that you're talking
Speaker 3: about here, because a lot of it's madness, it is,
Speaker 3: but like fuck it. I mean, I guess I said,
Speaker 3: I've never trained in that thing as well, so like
Speaker 3: why would I? And I know that Generalman Jess and
Speaker 3: Reynold are not classically trained either, So the fact that
Speaker 3: they haven't done any kind of skilled work in those
Speaker 3: areas but are still achieving it, that's examply.
Speaker 2: I applaud them for that.
Speaker 3: But like I got nearly twenty years of restaurant training.
Speaker 2: Some of the restaurant food idiots, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like I want to win, and like if Kirstin Tibble's
Speaker 3: comes in and doesn't do any chocolate, Everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 3: what do you doing, Curson, where's the chocolate?
Speaker 2: You're the chocolate queen. It's like, oh, I really.
Speaker 3: Wanted to push myself and you know, make fucking Pavlo
Speaker 3: like no, but everyone loves her for that. But I
Speaker 3: do what I and Andy Body does what Andy Baddy does,
Speaker 3: and I do what I do.
Speaker 2: In Kaylene Tanner does what Kaileaene tan does. No one's
Speaker 2: yelling at Morgan telling them to do more donuts.
Speaker 1: What I was thinking throughout the competition where some people
Speaker 1: had been guest judges, So you'd been a guest judge
Speaker 1: and some people have been contestants. I wondered whether or
Speaker 1: not being a contestant previously was an advantage in some way,
Speaker 1: because you know, it was interesting to see the way
Speaker 1: in which the cookie crumbled throughout the series and who
Speaker 1: left and who stayed, and you know, you were a
Speaker 1: guest judge and you've got two other people that have
Speaker 1: been in the competition before. I just wanted to know
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that. Was it somewhat more of an
Speaker 1: advantage maybe if you've been a contestant before.
Speaker 3: I don't ever want to discredit what those guys achieved,
Speaker 3: but I think if you look at how they performed
Speaker 3: in those first couple of cooks, you kind of like,
Speaker 3: these guys they feel comfortable here. You know, they know
Speaker 3: the dynamics, they know what it means. Sure like you
Speaker 3: in the first couple of episodes of a Master Chef season,
Speaker 3: there's like thirty people and there's a lot less equipment
Speaker 3: in per person, there's a lot less space. But even
Speaker 3: just like the knowledge is sort of actually, I know
Speaker 3: that how the pantry is set up, I know how
Speaker 3: I need to go, and but the best. These are
Speaker 3: the tips and tricks, and it's the sort of thing
Speaker 3: that like we all work as chefs, so when we
Speaker 3: do all workers chess, it's the sort of things you
Speaker 3: need to learn, Like you need to get those of
Speaker 3: evolutions in you work in places and I've worked in
Speaker 3: places like Dinnerway Hessen, like learn where a lot of
Speaker 3: this shit that you do is the exact same every day.
Speaker 3: Like the number of tipsy cakes that I've seen, Like
Speaker 3: I can't even look at one now and not just
Speaker 3: get trauma. Like it's six years working with that restaurant
Speaker 3: group and it never came off the menu and it
Speaker 3: was the most popular dish, so like yeah, but every
Speaker 3: day that I went in there, I'm sort of like,
Speaker 3: I know how I can like get you know, ten
Speaker 3: minutes per tray faster on rolling briansh. I know the
Speaker 3: best time of day to make this brush because the
Speaker 3: temperature is going to be right, there's going to be
Speaker 3: less people in the kitchen, so I have a bit
Speaker 3: more freedom and space to work with. I know they're
Speaker 3: not going to need the bench at this time. So
Speaker 3: these are these little tiny things. It's a little bit
Speaker 3: kooky because you just literally the minor the most minor
Speaker 3: of details and how you can improve yourself, your product,
Speaker 3: your efficiency, and I guess, your life in general.
Speaker 2: Just by making small little tweaks.
Speaker 3: So having that knowledge in the Master Chef kitchen, I
Speaker 3: guess also would just serve as a slight advantage. And
Speaker 3: when we're getting to a competition of this caliber, you like,
Speaker 3: these are well for one of a better term there,
Speaker 3: they're just the smallest things that they over time will
Speaker 3: accrue and have big, big rewards.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, I just was like, I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I was so surprised that they'd want to put people
Speaker 1: like yourself and Adriano and Kirsten. I just was so
Speaker 1: surprised that you'd all want to be in this competition
Speaker 1: because I'd be so because if it was me, I'd
Speaker 1: be scared that I'd ruin my you know, my credibility.
Speaker 1: But then there's also people that probably never watched Assert
Speaker 1: Masters that it wouldn't even affect them at all, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like that maybe if they
Speaker 1: googled you before they went to your restaurant, they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that you ktes on this show. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll go, yeah, well.
Speaker 3: There was always that fear, I think, and no one
Speaker 3: wanted to be the first to go. And then that
Speaker 3: was I think a lot of us is all as
Speaker 3: long as the first to go that I'm good. But
Speaker 3: there was also like the sense of you know, the
Speaker 3: first people. You know, we knew that we had reputations
Speaker 3: at stake, and there was going to be a lot
Speaker 3: of that. And even then there were there was I mean, again,
Speaker 3: we're not going to delve too much onto into the
Speaker 3: online hate, but like, yeah, there's there's a lot of
Speaker 3: opinions being shared around people because of how they performed
Speaker 3: on the show, and their reputation was tarnished, like somewhat
Speaker 3: in the eyes of the insignificant. That would would probably
Speaker 3: you know, if it was relevant, like actually have an
Speaker 3: impact on them. But yeah, there was a lot of stake.
Speaker 3: You know, if I if I was if I was
Speaker 3: dismissed early or something like that, then you know it
Speaker 3: would have been.
Speaker 1: Like okay, therapy after that before you could go back.
Speaker 3: Probably I just hope that you just hope that it
Speaker 3: wouldn't have a negative impact on the business and like.
Speaker 2: The negative impact on your career following because they were changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, you would know that even from COVID, like
Speaker 1: the world be quite a dangerous place. Like you know,
Speaker 1: when COVID happened, I remember reading something about it as
Speaker 1: we were coming out of COVID, something that you'd said
Speaker 1: about you were out of the job and then you
Speaker 1: were redefining whether or not what you would do with
Speaker 1: your career. Am I right by saying that? I remember
Speaker 1: reading something somewhere where you were like, maybe, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll go and get a corporate job, which, yeh is
Speaker 1: mind blowing that something in the something can happen to
Speaker 1: us in this world that could change our mindset like that.
Speaker 3: I think it was, to be honest, it was more
Speaker 3: of like a slow burnout, and I was become so
Speaker 3: disillusioned by the industry. There was like I was exhausted,
Speaker 3: Like so, I mean, I've always had like a really
Speaker 3: strong friendship circle outside of the industry.
Speaker 2: My partner's not in the industry.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of hobbies and activities that usually
Speaker 3: best enjoyed in the hours that are not conducive to
Speaker 3: hospitality work.
Speaker 2: You know, I love live sport.
Speaker 3: I love to go watch the foot I used to
Speaker 3: play a lot of footy, like the weekends, the weekend things,
Speaker 3: last evening thing. It was like, and I always resented
Speaker 3: hospitality for that that it took that away from me,
Speaker 3: and I kind of took it for granted in the
Speaker 3: sense that like, yeah, of course, I'm part of this
Speaker 3: and it's my passion, it's my lives is with my
Speaker 3: skill set, and I'm doing it forever and I love it.
Speaker 3: But I just craved like that normality and I really
Speaker 3: just wanted to sort of have Friday night knockoffs, you know,
Speaker 3: with my mates. I wanted to sort of have those
Speaker 3: Saturday morning. I wanted to play footy, like play sport
Speaker 3: on the Saturday morning. I want to go go to
Speaker 3: the game on Saturday night. I want to have Sunday session,
Speaker 3: like get breakfasted on Sunday morning. And I just, you know,
Speaker 3: that old gone back to work Monday kind of feeling.
Speaker 3: I almost even wanted that, you know, and I never
Speaker 3: had it because of HOSPO, and I was torn between
Speaker 3: this like high performance, high achievement thing. And I even
Speaker 3: took a little break at one point in my career
Speaker 3: before I moved to Melbourne and worked at Dinner and
Speaker 3: did a bit of catering at the Comic Bank. It
Speaker 3: was like for a year or something of that, and
Speaker 3: I loved it. Like the work itself was draining and
Speaker 3: soul destroyings. I felt like I'm not getting that satisfaction
Speaker 3: through my work. But I was out of there at
Speaker 3: three o'clock every AVO. I had every weekend off, making
Speaker 3: good enough money to really enjoy that lifestyle. BONDI beach
Speaker 3: during the summer, just incredible, playing sport, engaging with friends
Speaker 3: who have not really seen for so long. So yeah,
Speaker 3: and then after dinner and then having all these awful,
Speaker 3: awful things happen to us, these wage scandals, these talks
Speaker 3: of abuse in the industry, like having whistleblowers calling out
Speaker 3: friends of mine for making up lies about their behavior
Speaker 3: just because they want to shine a light in the
Speaker 3: toxicity of the hospitality industry. Having like our practices and
Speaker 3: our behavior as management within like a very reputable restaurant
Speaker 3: that's run by passionate and determined and like so highly
Speaker 3: motivated people being shot on because of some entitlement of
Speaker 3: people who don't really see Italian hard work. Now I'm
Speaker 3: all across, and I'm all for like legalities and they
Speaker 3: paying for money owed of work. But it was it
Speaker 3: seemed like people were like putting their foot down and saying,
Speaker 3: like I deserve this. I deserve more because I've shown up,
Speaker 3: like I've come to work, so like this is what
Speaker 3: I'm owed and like, well that's true to a certain extent.
Speaker 3: And then we sort of imposed the hospitality industry awards.
Speaker 3: So this is getting maybe a little bit controversial here,
Speaker 3: but there was a lot of stuff that I thought
Speaker 3: was like, it's kind of unfair on people who want
Speaker 3: to be motivated and want to be driven in their
Speaker 3: careers because of what this was. And so anyway, I
Speaker 3: think at the end of the day, it all very
Speaker 3: much like kind of broke my spirit a little bit.
Speaker 3: So coming out of dinner by Heston, I just thought, well,
Speaker 3: I don't like I can't stand this and I don't
Speaker 3: see myself doing it. I thought this is a good
Speaker 3: opportunity for me to maybe start a new So yeah,
Speaker 3: I looked at working with some of the suppliers that
Speaker 3: I'd worked with all like an agency that we used
Speaker 3: to use to get our kitchen hands. It's like, what
Speaker 3: if I worked within the industry and tried to like,
Speaker 3: you know, engage in another aspect of it and like
Speaker 3: work with product instead of the service side, and yeah,
Speaker 3: dip my toes in there and like put the feelers
Speaker 3: out at least, and COVID happened and they all kind
Speaker 3: of went away, and then I just sort of did
Speaker 3: what I needed to do to get by and worked
Speaker 3: in the supermarket, started baking it home.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting though, because it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the superhero complex in a way. If you gave that
Speaker 1: all away, would you be fulfilled creatively? If you were
Speaker 1: to be going to the footy with your mates or
Speaker 1: you're just out having a drink with your mates. I
Speaker 1: guarantee you in ten years, knowing that you had that superpower,
Speaker 1: you would feel depleted.
Speaker 2: I think one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And no matter how much joy I would bring to
Speaker 3: people through like exploring new products or whatever, I feel
Speaker 3: that was always going to be a compromise. And it
Speaker 3: took only it was like a couple of months and
Speaker 3: I was just like what am I doing? I just
Speaker 3: I have to be cooking. I'd have to be And
Speaker 3: it seems so like like chef bro I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that's a concept that you're familiar with, but like these
Speaker 3: guys whose personalities are their job, you know, they go
Speaker 3: foraging on the weekends, they only go out to restaurants,
Speaker 3: you know, on their time off.
Speaker 2: That like, chefing is your life.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, oh, it's so nauseating, But then
Speaker 3: I go and do it and I was like back, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is actually me, but it is.
Speaker 1: That's why you've got that balance. You've acknowledged that yourself
Speaker 1: in the sense that you know your partner isn't. In
Speaker 1: the industry, you've obviously craved that balance, and we do
Speaker 1: that behind the scenes of our minds sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: where where we make sure that sort of stuff happens
Speaker 1: to give us the balance that we know that we need.
Speaker 1: You know, I agree where if you were this arrogant chef,
Speaker 1: like some chefs have that reputation to be, and they're
Speaker 1: consumed by the industry, you know, it sort of overrides
Speaker 1: everything in that and in their lives, they don't have
Speaker 1: that balance that I guess we all crave to a
Speaker 1: certain extent.
Speaker 3: It's true, and I think that what I did that
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for now is that I decided just to
Speaker 3: pivot more so than actually give it up. And now
Speaker 3: working in production, working in retail, like we do the mony,
Speaker 3: we don't do the money a Friday, but we finished
Speaker 3: work in the afternoon. We have our nights off a
Speaker 3: bit antisocial in the sense that you know, I'll work
Speaker 3: most days of the weekend and I'm having to go
Speaker 3: to bed rest early because I've got you know, five
Speaker 3: thirty start. But you know, I think that in itself,
Speaker 3: we're it all pays off in the end because I've
Speaker 3: got the evening's back. I've got a young family now,
Speaker 3: so I see them every night. I spend time with
Speaker 3: my partner every day, which is always a plan. Like
Speaker 3: when I was working at Dinner and she was working
Speaker 3: at the hospital. She'd monaed a Friday nine to five,
Speaker 3: and I'd see her on Sunday and for a few
Speaker 3: hours on Saturday morning before I went to work. And
Speaker 3: it's not and Monday nights when she got home from work.
Speaker 1: For a man who loves coffee and tarts, like you know,
Speaker 1: you're programming yourself to work the hours that you want
Speaker 1: to work. You know, getting up early, you can't have
Speaker 1: a delicious coffee, do you know what I mean? I'll
Speaker 1: see you through the disastrous alarm clocks that we yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: working those sort of hours, I guess it's remissing me
Speaker 1: not to ask winning this competition, how do you think
Speaker 1: it's going to change your life? And how are you
Speaker 1: going to spend this hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 3: I certain, No, I mean I think I know it
Speaker 3: will change my life somewhat. I don't know if this
Speaker 3: is really going to like catapop me into the public eye.
Speaker 3: I don't really know. It's so hard to see. I
Speaker 3: know the show, the show has had such great like
Speaker 3: it's been received so well, and I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 3: We are hoping to use this as a ways to
Speaker 3: sort of, like you, launch our brand somewhat and actually
Speaker 3: get us into a into a new space where we're
Speaker 3: kind of like, I guess I'm using my own personality,
Speaker 3: in my own public status to promote the Tarts and
Speaker 3: not just let the business be its own promotional tool.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a bit of a different next
Speaker 3: few months. But I think what we're really hoping to
Speaker 3: do is just use this new energy, in this new
Speaker 3: excitement around around the success to actually launch ourselves into
Speaker 3: that space.
Speaker 1: How long have you had to think about all of this? So,
Speaker 1: I mean, did they film you winning when it was recorded?
Speaker 1: Or was there multiple endings recorded, Like, at what point
Speaker 1: did you find out that you'd want like if you
Speaker 1: had time to process.
Speaker 3: I found out I've been on the on the ride
Speaker 3: with everybody else, it's all been and that they have
Speaker 3: their ways, but we did. Yeah, it was not until
Speaker 3: last night, but actually, you know, it was one hundred
Speaker 3: percent confirmed when and I was actually was pretty grateful
Speaker 3: that I could actually share that moment with people and
Speaker 3: that I was just as Yeah, it was just.
Speaker 2: As much in the dark as everybody else, which is
Speaker 2: kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Your mind must be spinning now, it.
Speaker 3: Is, And again like there was because we obviously we
Speaker 3: lived with the cook itself and there was so much
Speaker 3: uncertainty around what was happening. So but to know that
Speaker 3: I was in the top three, I think what what
Speaker 3: I did know was that like being then, the same
Speaker 3: way that I'm sure Reynold and Jess will also feel,
Speaker 3: is that we're now like going to We're now going
Speaker 3: to have so much more opportunity to sort of launch
Speaker 3: and to sort of like leverage our success off the
Speaker 3: back of being in that top three with so many
Speaker 3: eyes on us that regardless of the result last night,
Speaker 3: this was a great launch pad for us, and I
Speaker 3: guess the.
Speaker 2: Being coming out with top going has only made it
Speaker 2: that much sweeter.
Speaker 1: Did you try and plan anything before coming onto the show?
Speaker 1: Like I was wondering how much of the cooks did
Speaker 1: you know? We're going to be set for you? And
Speaker 1: then of course there's going to be if you make
Speaker 1: it to the end, you're going to have that service challenge.
Speaker 1: Had you planned those particular set dishes for that?
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no no, there was like a
Speaker 3: there's a little bit of preparation that we get, but
Speaker 3: it's very little. They really do want, I think, and
Speaker 3: what they did say to us that we don't want Jeopardy,
Speaker 3: we don't want drama, which you're also going to take
Speaker 3: with a pinch of salt because it's TV and that's
Speaker 3: that cells we know that.
Speaker 1: It's going out on a date and saying that you
Speaker 1: don't want to get late.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Like, come on, guys, let's be honest, you
Speaker 3: know what are we here looking for?
Speaker 2: Friendship? Yeah? Really?
Speaker 3: When in reality we all knew that was going to
Speaker 3: be the the result eventually.
Speaker 1: You know what I was also thinking, you know, off
Speaker 1: the back of you saying what you could do with
Speaker 1: your profile? It was interesting. While I was watching the
Speaker 1: show with Melissa and Amory, I was thinking, don't you
Speaker 1: love how I say his name with my Australian accent,
Speaker 1: like come.
Speaker 3: Oh, Amor I'm not going to do it because I
Speaker 3: know I don't do it, I won't do it well
Speaker 3: and all that's going to I mean, if I'm going
Speaker 3: to get scrutinized by the French, I may as well
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: And you know, on my my own.
Speaker 1: Right, melissaly On does it so well that it now
Speaker 1: scares everyone out. I know, good lord, if.
Speaker 2: You can saund like that, you set the barhid.
Speaker 1: Mail every single time, every single time. But I did
Speaker 1: think watching this show, I wonder whether or not being
Speaker 1: a judge on a cooking show like this has now
Speaker 1: become of interest to you. I think that there will
Speaker 1: be more media interest in what it is that you do.
Speaker 1: Could you see yourself hosting a show like this?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think, I mean, look I could.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I want that to be my profile,
Speaker 3: because I still I really just I.
Speaker 2: Love what I'm doing right now. I love my business.
Speaker 2: I love working his other band, Creative.
Speaker 3: I love I'm still you know, and this is not
Speaker 3: going to come as a surprise, I'm sure, but I'm
Speaker 3: still on the tools four to five days a week.
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to go in there later and do
Speaker 3: some prep with the guys because we're busy and lots
Speaker 3: of new stuff coming in and like if I'm not
Speaker 3: in there, you know, cooking with them, Like you know,
Speaker 3: I think I've handed over some of the more logistical
Speaker 3: running of the actual kitchen to a very competent team.
Speaker 3: So I'm in there just sort of like you know,
Speaker 3: I'll run a few dishes through the potwash, I'll sheet
Speaker 3: the dough, or i'll aligne tartshells and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: So there's still a lot of hands on work and
Speaker 3: I want to stay with that, but you know, opportunities
Speaker 3: will come up. I think everything needs to take into
Speaker 3: consideration judging a show like that. I think anyone who
Speaker 3: knows me personally might not think that's the best things
Speaker 3: suited to me in that I have some very like
Speaker 3: strong opinions about things, and there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: I actually think we're heading towards more of that, though.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, i'd love to see it for
Speaker 1: a time we see on television, and you know, being
Speaker 1: in the public eye that you know, people are so
Speaker 1: two dimensional. We're actually like, if you want to engage
Speaker 1: with audiences more, if you want audiences to engage I
Speaker 1: think you kind of need to polarize them in a way.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to need to offer them. We're
Speaker 1: going to need to offer audiences more to digest and
Speaker 1: sometimes that means putting yourself on the line.
Speaker 3: And I agree one undercent and I think, and I'll
Speaker 3: use I'll reference that one of my favorite TV shows
Speaker 3: for this in that I don't think we see enough
Speaker 3: of it. But America is a country that is known
Speaker 3: for like lifting up and heralding the successes of others.
Speaker 3: They just love this promotional stuff. They really want to
Speaker 3: get behind their people. It's uplifting. It's very American. You know,
Speaker 3: if you say that you're engaged whatever, the whole audience
Speaker 3: will chair. It's not very much ingrain as the Australian culture,
Speaker 3: but it's slowly creeping in. But my favorite, one of
Speaker 3: my favorite shows, Top Shit, which is an amazing watch.
Speaker 3: They're fucking brutal and they are cut through. Like these
Speaker 3: days they kind of like soften a little bit. But
Speaker 3: the earliest seasons they were just like they were to
Speaker 3: the point they were like, why are you doing this?
Speaker 3: Like like I would send you all home if I could,
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, And I think, like, you want
Speaker 3: to see more of it. You have Padna who's very
Speaker 3: like lifting and beautiful, Tom Fleecko man, he's brutal because
Speaker 3: he's honest, and I think people want to see more
Speaker 3: of that, and I'd love to see more of that.
Speaker 3: And it was one of the things I really really
Speaker 3: really respected Amory Melfall is that you could tell, like
Speaker 3: you could tell one hundred percent that every single thing
Speaker 3: that they were saying in all of that judging came
Speaker 3: from their heart. Was sort of like this, like there's
Speaker 3: no agenda, we're not we're not trying to curate character arcs.
Speaker 3: There's none of this, there's no you know, no, there
Speaker 3: are no favorites. You know, there's no one here who's
Speaker 3: whose successes are being promoted ahead of others to suit
Speaker 3: the Channel ten's plan.
Speaker 2: They were sort of like, where here to judge some food?
Speaker 3: And then he came in and they were so meticulous
Speaker 3: on that, and I was not only grateful but also
Speaker 3: just so respectful of them for that.
Speaker 1: It's wild to me that you know, we kind of
Speaker 1: know that the key to connecting to audiences is authenticity
Speaker 1: and being honest and being real, but yet as time
Speaker 1: goes on, we sort of cookie kutter. Anyway, this is
Speaker 1: a much different podcast, But I appreciate, I appreciate where
Speaker 1: you're coming from, and I agree, I really do everyone
Speaker 1: who joins the podcast, though I finish off with asking
Speaker 1: them a question, what is something from behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: kind of like a behind the scenes secret of what
Speaker 1: it was like to be on Dessert Masters.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, actually behind there was a lot, like
Speaker 3: there was a lot just a lot of carrying on.
Speaker 3: Like I was saying before you, the one thing that
Speaker 3: I've always loved about hospital in general was that there
Speaker 3: was this semileance of personality that you could bring in.
Speaker 3: And I remember when I was doing a few interviews
Speaker 3: and chatting with like, you know, recruiters or key account
Speaker 3: managers and that sort of stuff, Like when I had
Speaker 3: this sort of midlife coarter life criss with what I
Speaker 3: want to call it, and I was seen in these
Speaker 3: interviews and it was so stuffy and formal and like
Speaker 3: the banter was just off. When I've had interviews for
Speaker 3: jobs like on a milk crate in next to a bin.
Speaker 3: I'm sort of like, do you want the job, mate?
Speaker 3: Do you think you can do it? I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I sear, I can give me a chance, coach, you know.
Speaker 3: And like there was this sort of organicness that's so
Speaker 3: like raw about HOSPO. And despite how passionate and motivated
Speaker 3: and driven we are as individuals, we're kind of like
Speaker 3: a bunch of kids, and you took all of us
Speaker 3: out of our comfort zone. You take us away from
Speaker 3: our businesses where we need to be respectful, respectable leaders,
Speaker 3: role models, professionals, and you lump us all in together.
Speaker 3: It's like a fucking zoo and the carrying on and
Speaker 3: just like the general shenanigans, like at the end of
Speaker 3: the week after IVS were like where we're off to,
Speaker 3: you know, we're in the green room, Like there's a
Speaker 3: white board full of requests and everyone's just like riding
Speaker 3: out junk food and we're sitting around just like inhaling
Speaker 3: these like little packets of the veggie straws and stuff.
Speaker 3: To the point now that our group chat is just
Speaker 3: so center around every single time you see I want
Speaker 3: to see the veggie straws to take a photo, put
Speaker 3: it in the group chat. You know, just the band
Speaker 3: turned that like the forming of those friendships, because there's
Speaker 3: this cabin feverish and that's something that is so inherent
Speaker 3: in hospitality culture that as soon as you put you know,
Speaker 3: these stoughts in the industrym together, it was kind of
Speaker 3: like adding sourdo started to the theme, just going just grow,
Speaker 3: just growing from there. And yeah, but we would go,
Speaker 3: we got we had gelato runs on the Friday nights.
Speaker 1: We'd He was saying that he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: in his as M three scoops of ice cream.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Adriana three scoops three.
Speaker 2: On the Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he've been obviously being up in Noosa like he's
Speaker 3: you know, he's got some good ice cream.
Speaker 2: Up there, like it's part of the culture.
Speaker 3: But like we're blessed in Melbourne picked Alina Cory, you know,
Speaker 3: there's Carrat and all the Messinas. You know, you can
Speaker 3: poke a fucking stick at Peter Pipo, Luther's scoops like
Speaker 3: some of these iconic like ice cream jokes around Melbourne,
Speaker 3: and he was just like, ah, this is incredible, and
Speaker 3: so we would.
Speaker 2: Kayleen lives up in whittle.
Speaker 3: See, so she's got a bit of a drive, so
Speaker 3: she'd always have a car there, and so she'd come in,
Speaker 3: we'd all like crammed to the back seat and just
Speaker 3: sort of like all like squished into like shoulders shoulder,
Speaker 3: and there's like five business tinl hatchbags driving around, you know,
Speaker 3: dotting about all the sorbet Gelado shops of Melbourne together,
Speaker 3: which is was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, money can't buy it, you know, and what an amake,
Speaker 1: you know, and it'll stay with you for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life, you know. I just I really appreciated
Speaker 1: the chat with you. I think that you want to
Speaker 1: offer and it was quite exciting to unpack this show
Speaker 1: with you because I think when people are listening to this,
Speaker 1: they'll hear your passion and I think people connect. That's
Speaker 1: the currency, you know, people's passion for what it is
Speaker 1: that they do. So yeah, for sure, thank you for
Speaker 1: taking the time.
Speaker 2: No, thank you. I really enjoyed it.