The death of MasterChef Australia jury member Jock Zonfrilo at the age of 46 has left the international gastronomic community in shock. Social media was filled this Tuesday with expressions of regret after the family announced that they were devastated by the disappearance on Sunday of this “proud Scotsman”, who catapulted TV to greater fame, but had done so before. An important mission to restore and re-evaluate Australian domestic products.
The cause of death has not been announced, and the new season of MasterChef Australia, which was due to start on Monday night, has been postponed. “With absolutely broken hearts and not knowing how we will move forward in life without him, we share the heartbreaking news that Jock passed away yesterday,” the family’s statement on Monday read. Zonfrilo married for the third time, to Lauren Fried, with whom he had a son in 2018 and a daughter born in 2020. He also has two daughters from previous marriages.
cooks Like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay as well as many of the show’s contestants, they reacted instantly. Like Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, who was also a judge on MasterChef, wrote: “I can’t tell you how amazing he was to work with.” “Jock has been so generous to me with his time and spirit on the show and I am so grateful for that.”
Several reports of Zonfrillo’s death shed light on his life “with ups and downs”. Born in 1976 in Glasgow as Barry, he started working in restaurants at the age of 13, washing dishes, and after two years he left school to devote himself entirely to cooking, having trained in London, on the famous and controversial chef Briton Marco Pierre White, whom he considered one of his greatest influences.
This all happened very early in Zionfrillo’s life, he recalled WatchmanAt 17 he was a heroin addict and living on the street, at 22 he was in charge of the kitchen at Tresanton Hotel in Cornwall, at 24 he was Head chef at Restaurant 41, in Sydney, having been fired after two years for setting fire, in what he described as a “prank”, to the trousers of an apprentice who worked too slowly for his satisfaction. The apprentice, Martin Kramer, sued and won, prompting Zonfrilo to declare bankruptcy in 2007, the British newspaper reports.
Living in Australia since 2000, he has opened several restaurants, most notably the award-winning Orana, which opened in 2013 in Adelaide, working with Australian ingredients that he discovered on many expeditions across Australian territory and stays with Aboriginal communities from that country.
This work led him to establish the Orana Foundation, in partnership with Adelaide universities (with which he later fell out and split with) and with financial support from the state, to deepen the study of local components, and to create an ambitious database. In 2018 he was awarded the Basque Culinary Word Award, which distinguished chefs Their work changes society through gastronomy.
In 2019, a year before Orana closed its doors in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, Zonfrillo became a MasterChef judge alongside Melissa Leung and Andy Allen, replacing the show’s popular original trio in Australia, Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehegan. In 2021 he published his autobiography, The last shotin which he recounts many of the most exciting events in his life and talks candidly about the mental health problems he faced.
The Disappearing Gastronomy Magazine Foolish Made, at No. 5, in 2014, the cover with Zonfrillo, accompanying his travels in Australia. The script’s author, Zane Lovett, describes his restless energy, the way his two phones never stopped, and how he constantly responded to every message he received. When his hands were unoccupied, they were “balls of frantic, turbulent energy with nothing to do”.
In this article, Zonfrilo outlines his view on Australia: “People forget that Aboriginal people were here 40,000 years ago, and not only survived, but thrived. Strong young people. Strong families living happily on this land thousands of years before we came to here “. Arriving in Australia in 2000 coincided with the end of a seven-year heroin addiction. When asked by Lovett if he had swapped the drug for something else, Zonfrilo replied, “No, except perhaps for work.”
The text ends with a promise: “I’m not going to take this trip to a point and say ‘This is Australian cuisine’. It’ll happen long after I’m gone. And that’s the goal of Fundação Orana, to make sure that happens, whether I’m here or not. This will continue long after.” that I die.”
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