In a spectacular victory, Justin Narayan from WA was crowned the triumphant winner of MasterChef Australia 2021.
Narayan beat out his best mate Pete Campbell and fan favourite Kishwar Chowdhury to win the $250,000 prize money which he says will, eventually, go toward opening his own restaurant – once he decides what kind he wants to open.
“I’m thinking about what kind of spot I want to open,” he told POPSUGAR Australia. “I love a little bit of everything. I’d love to do something with fine dining, but I’d also love something more casual, share plates, that would be fun. A cafe, who knows? I don’t know if I’ve narrowed it down to just one thing. These are all things to think about I guess.”
The final MasterChef challenge saw the three aspiring cooks tasked with completing Peter Gilmore’s intense five and a half hour pressure test in which they had to recreate his intricate fish noodles and golden crackle dome dessert.
Narayan took a calm and steady approach to the cook and executed all of the elements perfectly, but told POPSUGAR Australia that watching the episode back had taken him on an emotional ride once more.
“I definitely felt all of the pressure and got all of the emotions watching it back!” he said. “And now, having watched it back, I’m going to need another minute to process it all again because it is just such a surreal feeling!”
It’s surreal, in part, because the talented chef only ever saw cooking as a hobby and never dreamed that it was something he could one day make a living out of. However, thanks to some encouragement from his friends and his now-wife Esther, Narayan took the plunge and applied for MasterChef, which obviously turned out pretty well!
“Peer pressure, when it is the right people and when people have good intentions for you, bring it on!” he joked.
Given that his sense of humour and upbeat personality became legendary in the MasterChef kitchen, we asked Narayan if he planned to have his own TV show, like many of his fellow MasterChef alumni have gone on to do.
“That is definitely on the cards,” he revealed. “I’m working on creating some content at the moment and I’m excited to get that out. There are a couple of delays with COVID, but I’m going to make a couple of tweaks and get it out to the public as soon as I can.
“It’s just myself producing and creating it, which will be done through YouTube. And you can stay up to date with everything on my Instagram. And then I have a website and that will have a blog, recipes, videos, and a whole bunch of random things.
“But personally, it’s something that I would love — to entertain people and inspire them to cook.”
Follow Justin on Instagram @justinnarayan
