The unholy culinary trinity Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris — AKA the OG judges of MasterChef Australia — have reunited in a Zoom call, and rumours are swirling that they’re cooking up something BIG.
In a recent Instagram post by Calombaris — clutch your salaries rn — shared what seemed to be a mini-reunion between the three ex-judges via a Zoom call. Unfortunately, the video has no sound, so we cannot peep the “shots [sic] and gigs” Clombaris mentioned in his caption.
“Some serious food talk for a very special project,” Calombaris wrote, tagging both Preston and Mehigan.
The post has been flooded with a bunch of MasterChef fans pleading for the trio to make a television comeback.
“Omggggggg pls come back to TV!” one person wrote.
“Love seeing you all together. The awesome threesome please come back to TV together. Miss you all you were the best,” a second added.
“My boys all together,” wrote a third.
Mehigan, Preston and Calombaris were the big three of MasterChef Australia from its debut in 2009 up until 2019.
In a public statement posted on July 23 2019, Network 10 confirmed the trio’s departure from the show and said it was because it wasn’t able to “reach a commercial agreement” with the judges.
“Despite months of negotiation, 10 has not been able to reach a commercial agreement that was satisfactory to Matt, Gary and George,” Paul Anderson, who was Network 10’s chief executive officer, said.
The OG judges were replaced with Melissa Leong, Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo.
Not gonna lie; as someone who was fiending for MasterChef in its earlier seasons, I wouldn’t mind seeing Preston and Mehigan back on our screens, especially Preston’s collection of fancy pants.
However, I’m not too keen on seeing Calombaris.
ICYMI: Calombaris has been involved in multiple scandals. In 2017, the celebrity chef was embroiled in controversy after he allegedly underpaid his restaurant staff $2.6 million. In the same year, he was convicted of assaulting a teenager during an A-League grand final; however, the court ruling was overturned in 2018. In 2019, Calombaris copped a ‘yuge fine for underpaying staff nearly $8 million.
He also attempted a TV comeback on his own, but his show went straight to floptropica.
Prior to the Zoom call, the foodie boys (minus Calombaris) were rumoured to be circled by Channel Seven. It was also rumoured that Netflix and Amazon were sniffing around the tricky trio (with Calombaris) for a possible multi-million dollar deal.
If I had an executive choice, I would a) make Preston and Mehigan host a reboot of Ready, Steady, Cook! or b) reboot Planet Cook but make it really high stakes with Preston as the loveable yeti and Mehigan the chef. IYKYK.
Image Source: Getty Images / Mark Metcalfe
