Celebrity MasterChef 2016: Alexis Conran is the champion, Jimmy Osmond became cool and everything that happened in the final

Alexis Conran, who has won Celebrity Masterchef 2016
Alexis Conran won Celebrity Masterchef 2016 Credit: BBC/PA Wire

The Real Hustle presenter Alexis Conran beat BBC Breakfast host Louise Minchin and American entertainer Jimmy Osmond to claim the title of Celebrity MasterChef 2016.

Each contestant trotted out an impressive three dishes, but it was evident from the early stages of tonight’s show, if not the competition, that he was on a slightly higher plain than the other two contestants.

Wallace called him a “very worthy MasterChef winner”, and said that “allying that eye for presentation with his Greek heritage has resulted in some of the best food I’ve tasted in this competition."

Torode praised how his food became more sophisticated as the show progressed. But viewers will remember that Conran had that special feel for cooking from the very start, with Minchin and Osmond taking a couple of rounds to warm up and demonstrate their potential.

The Celebrity MasterChef finalists (L-R): Louise Minchin, Alexis Conran and Jimmy Osmond
The finalists (L-R): Louise Minchin, Alexis Conran and Jimmy Osmond Credit: BBC/Shine TV/PA

Alexis is the bestest

For the seasoned MasterChef viewer, the hierarchy of the programmes goes like this: first, controversially, the Professionals category (the best food, obviously, though a bit po-faced at times), then regular MasterChef (the one and only, with the right ratio of actual cooking, bum notes and outright failures) then Celebrity category. It’s basically a bit of fun, and contestants can get away with cooking noodles, pies and fried eggs at semi-final level.

Where the celebrity heat excels is the presence of people with actual personality – in fact, people chosen for their personality – which can be in low supply among ambitious, taciturn chefs used to the law of the professional kitchen.

Alexis Conran, who has won Celebrity Masterchef 2016
Alexis Conran, who has won Celebrity Masterchef 2016 Credit: BBC/PA Wire

Still, it’s good to see a serious cook genuinely interested in food that aspires to the higher ranks of the public competition, which you don’t often get, or even need to experience in the Celebrity heat (comedian Ade Edmondson won in 2013 by replicating a Marco Pierre White dish from the late Eighties, and nobody cared). Throughout the show he did the best looking plates (he could make a plate of meatballs look elegant) and his ideas were inventive without being stupid.

The winner fair and square

In his VT Conran opened up about his father, a gambling addict who turned to fraud to fund his addiction. Conran turned from doing television shows about scamming to wanting to win MasterChef fair and square. And that he did.

His finals menu went back to his speciality: modernised, elevated Greek food. There was an octopus stifado with yellow split pea and fava bean puree (and honey) to start. John Torode said everything was cooked perfectly, but said the honey was weird. Sweet-tooth Gregg Wallace liked it.

Conran was born in Paris, and for his main mixed French with Greek in a chicken and liver ballotine dish with feta curd, sweet peas and beetroot. “Sometimes you get to eat good food: sometimes you get to eat exquisite food.” said John Torode. “This was exquisite.” Conran looked overwhelmed. Wallace called it “one of the best things I’ve tasted in a long time” in the decision-making process afterwards.

It’s difficult to make a baklava look good, but he did, with a rich marbling of sauce, pomegranate seeds and flowers. Still, it split the judges, as, it seems, most of his dishes have throughout the competition.

Jimmy Osmond is awesome, in his own words

Who’d have thought Jimmy Osmond could be the best thing on a 21st-century show? For someone who hasn’t seen him in I’m a Celebrity... and his other reality TV circuit work, I was shocked (almost perturbed) about how much I enjoyed the 53-year-old Mormon entertainer. And the rest of the viewing public, it seemed, agreed. Scrolling through the MasterChef reactions on Twitter, it’s hard to find a tweet that doesn’t mention him.

I can’t remember seeing a celebrity who seems so happy to be alive from moment to moment without being completely unbearable. His boundless enthusiasm and awe for everything, his weird but supposedly successful coconut apricot sole, were all completely watchable.

In terms of cooking, his inventions seem spontaneous and effortless, and he’s been an impressively quick learner with a good palate throughout, able to cook a perfect chicken kiev from the recipe. In Atul Kochhar’s kitchen for the chef’s table round, Kochhar himself said Jimmy’s bhapa doi (a baked yoghurt dish) looked as good as his own. The expert guests at the chef’s table, leading lights of modern Indian cuisine and food writers, agreed, and were pretty much unanimous about it being perfect.

His final menu consisted of another fruit, coconut and seafood combo, this time with prawns for starter, a main of beef with bourbon barbecue sauce and something called a “whoopie pie”, and ended with “Jimmy’s modern art key lime pie”. John Torode called it an “all-American celebration”. But in the end they seemed to underwhelm. The prawn and marmalade dipping sauce was a bit basic, but the judges found ways to say positive things about it. “It’s fun, mate,” said Wallace.

The Celebrity MasterChef judges: John Torode (left) and Gregg Wallace
The judges: John Torode (left) and Gregg Wallace Credit: BBC/Shine TV

His main, beef with barbecue sauce and slaw, finished with hickory smoke,  led Wallace to praise the various stages and levels of flavour that the beef yielded. He wasn’t a fan of the whoopie pie, though, which Torode found a novelty. Gregg did his pudding face for his key lime pie, and Torode said. “You can’t help but smile when Jimmy serves you food”.  And that’s enough. Jimmy didn’t need to win. He was “awesome” which he called everyone completely guilelessly. By the end he had Wallace saying his catchphrase unknowingly.

Jimmy’s tears though!

Last night he cried when he got through to the final three. Today he welled up during the obligatory soppy VT when talking about being his children’s “hero”. After cooking an Indian dessert, too. Yeah, I know. The youngest Osmond crying: cheesy. Actually, it was still completely engrossing.

He turned sheer innocuousness into a real personality virtue. Maybe, in this time of British political upheaval, of world upheaval, the average person could really benefit from an hour every day of just lapsing into Jimmy mode. Sign me up for a Jimmy hour.

Life may not be like Jimmy Osmond, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend.

Two episodes for the price of one

Finals of MasterChef can sometimes be slightly less inspiring than the previous episodes because there is less interaction with top chef mentors. Its works to have the last cook-off episode conflated with the chef’s table challenge.

This time the contestants cooked under Atul Kochhar of Benares in Mayfair, one of the first chefs to get a Michelin Star for Indian cuisine. Louise did boneless tandoori chicken wings, Alexis cooked venison chocolate biriani, and Jimmy’s rhubarb and fudge bhapa doi went down a storm. It was a shame the expert guests at the chef’s table were a bit ungenerous, though.    

Then it was back to the MasterChef kitchen in east London, with some slo-mo shots of the contestants walking past canals, walking past weeping willows, wearing scarves.

Did the fragrances in Atul Kochhar’s kitchen make Gregg Wallace hallucinate?

The effect was clearly an intoxicant to curry “veteran” Gregg Wallace, who got so carried away he told Louise she reminded him of the “sort of girl on a Friday night really drunk eating a biriani”.

It was sort of complicit and well-meant, but it’s just plain inaccurate. I’d have trouble imagining an athlete and newscaster who has to be up at four in the morning for work drunkenly eating a curry on the high street on any day.

Still, it was almost as high quality Wallace as when he said about a dish “shave its head, stick a pair of glasses on it and it’d be the best looking thing in the room”. But top lewd food points go to him for: “If she makes that right [mayonnaise], I’m going to take it home and spread it on everything I’ve got.” Gregg is the master of what probably isn’t innuendo but always almost is.

Louise Minchin made her own MasterChef stencil, plus Rickaaay

Tonight, Louise Minchin – BBC Breakfast presenter, cheesecake chucker and triathlete spice queen – pulled out all the stops. She was swiping things across the plate with a brush, then wiping them off because they looked gross. She was stenciling the MasterChef logo on plates with dehydrated raspberry. (She made the stencil herself.)

Her carpaccio of venison looked stunning and Gregg said there were “no but”[s]. Her bream main course was simple but nice, and her dessert was a sort of mille-feuille stack of raspberry and brandy snaps, with pitch-perfect ginger ice cream.  

Louise Minchin, the BBC Breakfast presenter
Louise Minchin, the BBC Breakfast presenter Credit: Shine TV

Torode praised how she’d added “bags of flavour” to her natural gift for presentation. "She’s made herself a great, great cook.” Not bad for having mainly cooked fish fingers before the show, according to her daughters (though I imagine this was a joke. I mean, surely it had to be, right?).

Wallace said she was as good a contestant who had ever been on the celebrity category, which I wouldn’t outright agree with, but nevertheless she was good and inquisitive from the off. By a small margin, I would say she was the weakest candidate, but only because she has done most of her growing in the last couple of rounds.

In the semifinal she beat Sid Owen (Ricky from EastEnders), when cooking for critics with a flawless cheesecake, but up until then Owen had the clear edge. Right up until then, in fact. He came top of the palate test immediately before the critics slammed his gazpacho.

He was an "instinctive" cook who didn’t work from recipes, but was, in fact, very controlled: the most focused in the room. He pretended to be super casual, just coming up with things on the spot, but was in fact steely and determined.

In the heats, he had a friendly-but-really-deadly-serious rivalry with Minchin – another contestant who you could tell was super competitive but tried to hide it. (“Honestly, I never win things,” she said. Hello, triathlete who competes at international level…)

I sort of wanted Owen to get through to the final on the strength of his just being “Rickaaay”. But in truth he didn’t really add as much in terms of personality value as the other contestants, which, in a celeb format, is what you’re really there for. And in terms of a final three dishes of the competition, it’s hard to see Sid Owen creating a dish as beautiful and meticulously thought out as Minchin's.

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