The three new MasterChef NZ judges have been announced!

Publish Date
Monday, 2 May 2022, 1:51PM

After a seven-year hiatus, MasterChef NZ is back!

The new-look trio of judges is led by MasterChef Season 2 winner, celebrity cook and entrepreneur Nadia Lim.

Lim is joined by renowned three-hatted chef Vaughan Mabee, most famous for being executive chef of Queenstown favourite Amisfield, and multi-award-winning restaurateur Michael Dearth of Auckland's The Grove and Baduzzi.

The reality show will follow 27 amateur cooks, who compete in a series of increasingly difficult cooking challenges to avoid weekly elimination and, eventually, be crowned the winner.

The Kiwi contestants started the competition at Walter Peak, cooking off to win one of the 16 coveted aprons and make it to the new bespoke designed MasterChef kitchen at Vingard, near Arrowtown.

"We loved every contestant, they all seemed like genuinely good people. It made it blimmin' hard to eliminate them," 36-year-old Lim said.

"There was a real mix of contestants who cooked from their hearts, others who were more calculated. Some played the game of playing it safe, others were more akin to taking risks.

MasterChef NZ comes soon to Three and ThreeNow.

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