EARLIER this year, Melbourne chef Gary Mehigan was a well-known name and face only among his restaurant industry peers and avid foodies on the east coast.
Just a few months later, and the affable British expat – who regards himself as an Aussie after 17 years living on our shores – is a bonafide household name around the country, thanks to his starring role as a judge and mentor on reality TV phenomenon MasterChef Australia.
His newfound mainstream appeal has surprised even the man himself.
“To put a cooking show on six nights a week in prime time was a very risky proposition,” he says over the phone from his Melbourne home.
“I honestly thought it could rate OK or it may get canned after the first two weeks.”
The show’s ratings triumph has propelled Mehigan – the owner of Melbourne establishments Fenix and The Boathouse – into the ‘celebrity chef’ realm, and more notably, a position of powerful culinary influence, with media reports of increased sales of cookbooks and kitchen utensils.
“I remember at the beginning, (fellow judges) Matt (Preston), George (Calombaris) said that if the show was a success, we wondered what good we could do out of it,” he says.
“We are not on the same level as Jamie Oliver, but he made a massive difference to how people in the UK ate with school dinners.
“One of the special things for me – I am a father with a daughter who is eight – is that kids have fallen in love with the show and are talking about cooking, helping mum and plating up food.
“I think ‘wow, there goes my little field of influence in my two restaurants’. All of a sudden, I’m introducing a whole generation of kids to good food and that’s amazing.”
This state of ever-growing influence also extends to his involvement in the touring Good Food & Wine Show, which rolls into Perth at the end of the month.
As with MasterChef, which has thrust Mehigan into the public spotlight, the Good Food & Wine Show is the perfect forum to make his craft more accessible to a wider audience, and in doing so, foster a better understanding and appreciation of food.
“Our celebrity theatres in the Sydney and Melbourne Good Food shows have been booked out, and when you’re doing a half-hour demonstration to 2,500 people, that’s pretty special,” he says.
“We’re two pretty grounded chubby guys, but we feel like rock stars.
“Even though people probably won’t remember the recipes that we do, if we can get them to later have a go at something, then my job is done.”
As for the uninspired and self-confessed time-poor cooks out there, Mehigan – who likes to give the pressure cooker and barbecue a workout when cooking for his family and guests at home – has some sage advice.
“Go shopping with a list and have a little think about dishes – buy cookbooks and magazines for ideas – and try and fill your shopping basket every so often with something different,” he said.
“That way, you don’t get stuck in a rut and end up having spaghetti bolognese on a Monday and lamb chops in a Tuesday every week.
“Buy those scary looking artichokes that nobody buys because they look too hard to prepare, have a go and on a Friday night when you have time to have a glass of wine and enjoy the process rather than it being something that is stressful.”
The Good Food & Wine Show is at Perth Convention Exhibition Centre from July 31 to August 2.