MasterChef is back in India with a celebrity twist and I couldn’t be more disappointed. Let’s face it—after eight seasons, it doesn’t even come close to MasterChef Australia or its counterparts in other countries.
The new spin-off show is called Celebrity Masterchef. Even though only a handful of episodes are out on Sony Liv, it seems to lack one key element: Good cooking.
TV actors like Tejasswi Prakash, Dipika Kakar, Faisal Shaikh, Gaurav Khanna, Nikki Tamboli, Archana Gautam, Usha Nadkarni, Kabita Singh, Rajiv Adatia, Abhijeet Sawant, and Chandan Prabhakar are the contestants this year. So, of course, there is more drama.
MasterChef India is like a high-stakes soap opera with some food on the side.
The irony is that the Indian version does have talented chefs like Nayanjyoti Saikia and Kirti Bhoutika, but it often gets bogged down in melodrama. The producers have the perfect dish but then go and dump an entire cup of garam masala into it.
Emotional backstories about family tragedies to tension-filled showdowns over burnt dishes are par for the course.
Sure, drama makes for great reality TV, but just like in the kitchen, less is more when it’s a cooking show. The contestants on MasterChef India are often scrambling for survival rather than cooking with purpose.
Drama over skill
Each episode is laden with tension, fights, alliances, and emotional breakdowns.
A promo, released on 6 January, shows Dipika Kakkar emotional and in tears, reacting to online trolling about being a ‘home cook’. Accompanied, of course, by melancholic music and slow-motion shots of her wiping away tears.
Every season, the makers manage to have a few contestants who have a sob story.
In MasterChef India Season 7, Kamaldeep Kaur’s journey from a housewife to the MasterChef kitchen was highlighted over and over again.
While her story was undoubtedly inspiring, the extended montages of her family showed how the makers milked her story. It reached a point where the focus was more on her tears than her dishes.
The judges also contribute to the drama.
MasterChef Australia judges like Andy Allen and Jean-Christophe Novelli challenge contestants not just on their skill, but also their creativity and ability to think on their feet. They bring in some of the top chefs who push the contestants to explore and experiment with food.
Celebrity MasterChef has roped in filmmaker Farah Khan alongside chefs Ranveer Brar and Vikas Khanna. Now, I don’t doubt Khan’s cooking skills but a filmmaker serving as a judge on a cooking show is nothing short of bizarre.
Does India have a shortage of chefs, food critics, and food writers?
Well, even Michelin-starred chefs end up becoming performers on MasterChef India. Instead of using their expertise to help contestants grow, they’re busy amping up the drama like the judges of Dance India Dance or Indian Idol.
From Vikas Khanna’s emotional monologues to Brar’s ‘inspiring’ speeches, the judges often steal the spotlight from the food. This theatrical approach feels forced and undermines the culinary expertise that should be the focus.
When their critiques veer into motivational speeches or emotionally charged moments, the focus shifts from the food. The contestants are then more interested in appeasing the judges than cooking at a world-class level.
The best cooking shows let the food speak for itself. On MasterChef India, it remains silent.
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Lack of depth
If you’re tuning in for culinary education, MasterChef India might leave you feeling short-changed.
The challenges, often fun, don’t test the depth of a contestant’s skills. The technical challenges tend to fall flat. They’re more about creativity than execution, usually limited to recreating regional dishes or adapting traditional recipes.
MasterChef Australia is known for its difficult challenges. From the popular Pressure Tests—where contestants must replicate a dish from top chefs like Heston Blumenthal or Adriano Zumbo—to the Immunity Challenges featuring restaurant-grade cooking, the show pushes its participants to the extreme. A standout example is Reynold Poernomo’s multi-layered Moss Dessert, which left contestants struggling with the precision and technique required.
MasterChef India often simplifies challenges. It involves replicating a complex biryani or a traditional mithai with minor twists, rather than avant-garde dishes.
For instance, in Season 6, contestants had to recreate Brar’s complex Ghewar with Shrikhand Mousse, requiring sugarwork and deep-frying techniques—which aren’t really high-pressure culinary techniques. In one episode, the contestants, divided into groups, were asked to prepare a thali.
Even in team challenges, the stakes feel lower compared to Australia’s service-based tasks in Michelin-star restaurants.
How many times have we seen an episode in MasterChef India where a contestant is challenged to cook a perfectly executed crème brûlée or a soufflé rather than biryani or dal?
While the latter are skills that require years of technical mastery, Indian cooking remains heavily focused on comfort food that’s sometimes more about tradition than innovation.
This isn’t to downplay the brilliance of Indian cuisine. MasterChef India just fails to elevate it the way Vikas Khanna has done in his US restaurants, Bungalow and Junoon.
While the show’s focus on Indian food is important, it also stops the competition from achieving the kind of scope and cultural exchange that MasterChef Australia and MasterChef UK offer.
It’s high time MasterChef India shifts gears from contestants’ emotional breakdowns to their growth as chefs.
After all, this is supposed to be a cooking competition, not a Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi rip-off.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
And Ms. Triya Gulati is more drama than MasterChef India.
And where there’s drama, there is Ms. Gulati.
Ms. Gulati along her friend, the delightful Ms. Ratan Priya, seem like interns – always happy and bubbly.
Their idea of journalism is to write silly articles on garbage topics and The Print is more than willing to host those articles on it’s platform.