Press Release
Cheftestants perform theatre of food in Durban
Episode 8
Thursday night's episode of MasterChef South Africa 3 saw the Top 10 contestants on location on Durban’s world famous “Golden Mile” for their first Team Challenge.
Durban teacher Penny (31) was made the captain of the Blue team during the contestants’ visit to Sydda Essop’s “Karoo Kitchen” last week, and Philippa (48), a life skills lecturer from Johannesburg, was put in charge of the Red team.
“I’ve chosen my team quite carefully, I think,” said Penny. “I’ve chosen Roxi – she is fantastic at plating and her desserts ... Refilwe, because she’s pretty much an all-rounder ... Francois, because he’s fantastic with meat ... and Siphokazi, because she just goes!”
Philippa, meanwhile, thought that she got her own personal A-Team together. “Mel and Ian – great all-rounders ... Claire’s got a phenomenal ability with people ... Abi has got a fantastic brain,” she noted. “So I think we’re going to make a great team.”
MasterChef judges Pete Goffe-Wood, Reuben Riffel and Benny Masekwameng met the teams in the kitchen of The Grill Jichana restaurant in the Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani hotel on Durban’s Golden Mile, which Benny explained is the heart of the KwaZulu-Natal tourism industry.
“The kitchens here at the Elangeni & Maharani serve more guests than any other hotel in South Africa,” he revealed. “It’s a well-oiled machine that needs to make sure that no guest leaves hungry – or grumpy!”
Pete added that service in a hotel like this was a little bit like a theatrical production, especially the kind of service the contestants would be performing in this challenge. “Gueridon Service is a celebration of the theatre of food,” he instructed. “You’re right at the table making food in front of your guests. It’s going to test you to your limits today.”
In Gueridon service, the sauce is prepared with great flourish on a trolley at the table, usually with a flambé element.
Reuben explained that the contestants would be preparing classic Grill Room dishes: “Things like fillet steak, linefish, those glorious sauces ... crispy fries ... and my favourite: those really crispy and delicious onion rings,” he said.
“You’ll need a meat griller, you’ll need a fish griller, you’re going to need someone on the pass, and you’ll need a waiter to take the orders and bring out the food, and someone to man the Gueridon trolley,” he instructed the teams.
Penny decided to have Cape Town musician Francois (22) cook the meat, train driver assistant Roxi (26) from Durban handle the fish dishes, Siphokazi (38), a domestic worker from Cape Town, flambéing sauces on the Gueridon, and Refilwe (36) a service consultant from Carltonville, waitering, and she herself would man the pass.
On Philippa’s Red team she put Cape Town advertising consultant Ian (49) on the grill, Abigail (38), a dental technologist also from Cape Town, on the fish dishes, Vaalwater lodge manager Mel (25) on the pass, events company owner Claire (27) from Cape Town on waitering duty and herself behind the Gueridon trolley.
And, as always on MasterChef, there was a twist: “Today you’re going to be serving tables of professional waiters,” Pete explained. “These professionals have up to 50 years experience in the top restaurants. For a change they’re going to be on the receiving end and they’re going to expect the best.”
He introduced the teams to their guests: George, who’s been working at the Elangeni for the past 45 years; Charmaine, who’s worked there for the past ten years, Gordon; who has been working in the same restaurant with three generations of his family for the past 43 years; and Danny, who has worked in all the major hotels in Durban over the past 45 years.
The contestants were impressed and intimidated, but they soon found out there were advantages to serving such experienced guests, as Philippa’s table patiently talked her through her first ever Gueridon service. “They told me where I was going wrong, they told me what I was doing right, and so basically I had a little masterclass in the challenge, of my own,” she recounted happily.
The only mishap came when the Blue team served an underdone steak to a diner who had ordered his “medium rare”, and Benny reprimanded them for keeping one guest at the table waiting while his companions were all eating.
“Now what do I do now? This is over, I’ve messed up everything. It’s a terrible feeling – terrible!” a fraught Francois berated himself.
And at the end of a long day that mistake ended up costing them dearly, as the Red team took the challenge. They won a relaxing day out at a surprise destination, but for the Blue team another Elimination Challenge loomed.
“Five of you will enter that challenge but only four of you will return,” Reuben spelled it out.
“I suppose its one more opportunity to find out what you’re made of, and will hopefully make me tougher,” Penny noted philosophically.
“I think I’m just going to try and get my mind set and I’m just going to be focused,” her friend Roxi agreed. “The game is on.”
MasterChef South Africa is broadcast exclusively on M-Net Channel 101 every Thursday evening at 19:30, and now all the episodes of the season so far will be available via DStv Catch Up on Explora.