Masterchef Goes Large is an English cooking reality show created by Loyd Grossman and Gary Rhodes in which 96 contestants are whittled down to one winning chef.
Originally called Masterchef, the show ran initially from 1990 to 2001. It was revived in a different format as Masterchef Goes Large from 2005 onwards. The "Goes Large" part of the name was dropped in 2008.
Masterchef Goes Large premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Food on Monday 4 February 2008, at 19h30. There are 30 episodes in Season 1, which were spread over six weeks. Five episodes aired one after the other each Monday night, from 19h30-22h00.
Season 2 premiered on BBC Food on Tuesday 15 April 2008, at 20h00. There are 40 half-hour episodes in the season, which air every week day at the same time.
Synopsis
Top chef and restaurateur John Torode, and vegetable guru Gregg Wallace are looking for Britain's next star chef. Ninety six would-be-chefs are whittled down to a mere four in a series of gruelling challenges.
Torode and Wallace do not address the viewer directly - instead information is conveyed by a voiceover performed by India Fisher. The series incorporates various different challenges for the amateur chefs, including:
- Inventing a dish from scratch in 40 minutes. The contestants can choose from any of a selection of ingredients provided on the day. This forms the first round of the programs and reduces the contestants from six to three cooks.
- Working a lunchtime shift at a busy restaurant.
- Cooking a final meal of two courses, with ingredients of the contestants' choice in one hour.
Six contestants begin each heat, with three eliminated after the first task. Contestants often find themselves in two minds whether to 'play it safe' or attempt something slightly more experimental or unorthodox. The daily winners go through to a weekly quarter-final.
The weekly quarter-finals produce six winners who are then whittled down over the final two weeks. The quarter-final follows a different structure with different challenges:
- The ingredients test, where the contestents are asked to identify a selection of ingredients or produce.
- The Passion Test, in which each contestant has one minute to convince the judges of their overwhelming passion for food (following these two, one contestant is knocked out without having cooked that day).
- Finally the contestants produce a three course meal in one hour and twenty minutes.
In the final stages, the contestants must cook under various (some would say novelty) conditions - in a ship's galley, at a Michelin-starred restaurant, backstage for The Corrs, and so on.
The winner is crowned The Winner.