Cooking Dreams, Television Realities — A Chef Looks at MasterChef

I don’t remember the first time I watched MasterChef, but it’s a show I’ve always loved. I started with the UK version and followed every new series as it came out. Then came MasterChef: The Professionals, then MasterChef Australia, then the US and even the Canadian version. Each country has its own spin, but all of them share one thing: a glamorisation of the role of the chef.

On screen, contestants compete for glory — the dream of running their own restaurant, becoming the “ultimate” MasterChef. The judges dissect each plate, and in a single dish someone’s dreams can be made or shattered. I was enthralled.

At some point, though, my perspective shifted. Once I started working professionally, I found myself asking: why are these people competing to do my job? Do they even know what they’re signing up for? And yet, despite knowing the truth behind the curtain, I still watch MasterChef Australia and still love it. But why?

The Sanitised Dream- A Chef Looks at MasterChef

It was only after years on the line that I noticed everything MasterChef leaves out. On TV, someone cuts themselves and everything stops. A medic appears, a bandage is applied, and they’re gently fussed over. In real kitchens, that rarely happens. You slap on a plaster, pull on a glove, and keep going. Service halts only when someone is practically spraying blood.

I catch myself thinking, “Come on, it’s a cut — wipe it and get moving.”

Then there’s the time pressure. Contestants must dream up, cook, and plate a dish in forty minutes or ninety minutes. In reality, a new dish takes weeks of testing, tasting, tweaking, adjusting. The idea of nailing perfection in one go is fantasy.

MasterChef kitchens are dream worlds: pantries stocked with every ingredient imaginable, endless creative freedom, and a prize that promises fame, cookbooks, and opportunity. But for most chefs, the reality is far grittier. Cooking can become an obsession that leads to mental health struggles. Toxic perfectionism, burnout, bullying — these are real. One plate is never “everything”, yet MasterChef glamorises that high-stakes illusion.

Comparing the Shows

UK Version

MasterChef UK is understated. Less spectacle, more craft. Challenges are simpler, and the final plate is the focus. It’s gentler than the other versions, but it still sanitises the grind of a real kitchen.

Australia

MasterChef Australia thrives on camaraderie. Dozens of episodes, fun challenges, and guest appearances from culinary icons. The show treats chefs like deities — Jamie Oliver, Marco Pierre White, Nigella — even though many of the opportunities involve chains rather than temples of haute cuisine. Still, the warmth and “family” feel are undeniably lovable.

US Version

The US version is all spectacle. Fast edits, dramatic music, hero shots, conflict. It’s as much about personality and entertainment as it is about food. Skill matters — but so does screen presence.

Celebrity MasterChef

I have to be honest: the celebrity version irritates me more than anything else, and it’s the only one I don’t watch. I respect contestants in the other formats, because even amateurs have at least worked on their cooking and clearly love it.

Celebrities, on the other hand, stroll in wearing their lack of experience like it’s some quirky personality trait. They plate a mediocre dish and the judges applaud as if they’ve reinvented gastronomy — despite the fact that if an amateur plated the same thing, they’d be torn to shreds.

Then the celebrity walks away as the winner, gets a career revival, maybe a cookbook, maybe a food show. Meanwhile, chefs who’ve grafted for years watch someone parachute in, bypass the grind entirely, and profit from a craft they’ve never had to live. It belittles how hard it actually is to become a chef.

What We Don’t See

Behind every TV dish is a long list of realities MasterChef never shows:

• Who washes the mountains of dishes?

• How long are contestants actually cooking?

• Are they prepared for ten-hour shifts, let alone sixteen?

• Real kitchens aren’t about one dish — they’re about dozens, simultaneously.

• Ingredients cost money. Time costs money. Waste costs money.

• Mistakes aren’t dramatic; they’re exhausting and invisible.

• Teams matter. You can’t solo your way through 60 covers.

MasterChef shows the glamour, not the grind.

It’s Harmless… If We See It for What It Is

If audiences take MasterChef for what it is, then honestly, it’s harmless. Because MasterChef is not a competition to become a chef — it’s a competition to skip being a chef and become a personality. It’s the same formula as The X Factor or Bake Off: only one person gets the golden ticket.

These shows aren’t for people who want to graft through the industry. They’re for people who want their name on something — a cookbook, a platform, a TV deal. And who can blame them? The industry is brutal.

Where it does feel harmful is in the messaging around what it means to be a chef: the obsession, the sacrifice, the idea that cooking must consume your entire identity. The drama of “one failed dish = life ruined.” The hysterics over a missing sauce.

Nothing in a kitchen — nothing — needs to be that existential.

MasterChef sells the romance, but it also sells the anxiety. It sells the joy, but also the myth that chefs must bleed for their craft. It’s a beautiful dream, as long as we remember it’s still a dream.

And despite everything, I’ll keep watching — because somehow, I still enjoy it, even with my eyes wide open.

(Apart from Celebrity MasterChef. That trash can go in the bin along with the Z-list careers it drags in.)

MasterChef calls risotto the ‘death dish’ — a test that terrifies even skilled cooks. To go with this post, I’m sharing my Thai Crab Risotto, one of the first recipes I created as a sous chef. It’s my choice to bring this piece to life, and it’s available exclusively to subscribers on my Substack.