Source : the age
On Sunday night, Vinnie Gibaldi was crowned the winner of MasterChef Australia’s 18th season. The 25-year-old transplant nurse from Melbourne beat Petro Papathomas in an intense two-round cook-off that included a mystery box challenge and then a five-hour Chinese Afternoon Tea pressure test set by world-renowned pastry chef Cherish Finden. He tells national TV editor Louise Rugendyke how he made the move from “sandwich guy” to champ, being a hit in the hospital and the meaning behind his necklace.
Congratulations, Vinnie! How are you feeling?
Pretty good, pretty, pretty good. I’m very grateful, and I’m just so appreciative of everyone. I don’t really have that many words because I’m still lost for words at the moment.
How long ago did you film the final? How long have you been hanging on to this for?
We filmed the final in May. I was in a bit of a limbo for a while. I know how I cooked, but you don’t see what happens at the other bench, and you don’t see the tastings. I got a call yesterday [Sunday] morning from the producers, and that was when I found out. So I only had to hold on to it for a little bit of time, but it was nerve-wracking just trying to wrap my head around everything.
How did you feel last night when you got to see everyone’s reactions to your dishes in the pressure test? Cherish was pretty happy.
It was crazy because when that dish [Chinese Afternoon Tea] was revealed, I was like, “Oh no, this is the end for me.” Not only were they desserts, but they were also this big [makes tiny shape with fingers], and these hands aren’t really meant for things like that. So I was pretty scared. But hearing that feedback was really, really nice. All that work that I’d been doing, and all that time, and all that practice led up to this, and it was awesome to do everyone proud, including Cherish.
I know you were nervous, but my theory with you and fellow contestant Annabel Lloyd is that you both have nursing backgrounds, which means you’re able to follow processes and not get flustered. Am I right – did nursing help?
One hundred per cent. I feel like that’s me, but it’s also nursing, and I feel like those type of people go into nursing as well. So it’s hand-in-hand. But it’s definitely staying calm under pressure when something goes wrong, instead of hyper-fixating on it, just being able to brush it off was definitely a skill that I feel like came from nursing, and it was very, very helpful to me.
Do you get flustered over anything?
To be honest, not really. I’m usually quite calm. I feel like there’s never a time where you should dwell. I’ve been like that in general, just as a person, but especially at work. When something’s going wrong, you can either focus on it or you can just get it done.
In that final pressure test, did you notice how much Petro was struggling? He was getting quite emotional.
Honestly, that cook was a blur to me. Being over five hours, but it felt like 45 minutes. Everyone was yelling, but it was just muffled. I was really locked in and focused. But after the cook, I could see he was pretty emotional, and you don’t want to see that. He’s still my mate. I never once thought that we were competing against each other. I thought it was always us cooking together, so that was sad for me as well.
This year’s group seemed really collegiate. Was that the experience you thought it would be?
What was a surprise was the fact that other years haven’t been like this. Talking to the judges, they were like, “You guys are really close, and you seem like genuine friends”, and we’re like, “Yeah, is that not normal?” I’ve met like a lot of people on that show who have become my friends for life, which is pretty special. I thought it was weird that that wasn’t the case for other seasons.
At the beginning, you were “the sandwich guy”. Did you feel like that let you fly under the radar, even though you got the apron right at the beginning?
I felt a little bit of impostor syndrome. I’m not discrediting my audition dish because I did make every single element, but then I was looking at what everyone else did, and what everyone else would cook. I’m like: “Well, I don’t know how to do that”, or “I don’t know these fancy words”. I was very much a rustic Italian home cook. I felt a little bit out of my depth, but that just made me practise more and work harder to get up to scratch and do my absolute best every single day.
I did notice in the grand final episode you said, after the Josh Niland cook, you bought a whole lot flathead so you could practise filleting and deboning. Is that what it was like every single night? You just finish the cook, go home and keep cooking.
Every time I had a cook, and I didn’t do too well, I would listen to what the judge’s feedback was as gospel, and I would go home and improve, and would work and work and work, and I would practise anything. So, for example, Josh Niland, I remember going to the Vic Market, and I was like, “I need to get up to scratch with this” because this is a really good tool to have in my arsenal, and it proved well [Vinnie won the first round of the final cook with his grilled flathead]. But, yeah, everyone did go home afterwards and would practise, and you’re always in each other’s room tasting something: “Oh, what do you reckon of this? What do you reckon of that?”
In our house, we all have a crush on Jean-Christophe Novelli. He has no poker face. You always know when he likes something.
John-Christophe is the loveliest man ever. Off camera, you don’t see a lot of it [on TV], but he is so lovely and caring and just a genuinely nice person. We would always look at him [during judging] because he would always let it loose.
I don’t want to get too political here, but when I watch MasterChef Australia, I think of comments from Pauline Hanson, where she says she wants a monoculture. For me, MasterChef is just the best example of what being a multicultural country is all about. Your family is from Italy, Petro’s family is from Greece and so many of the other contestants had such a variety of backgrounds.
It’s pretty awesome that we live in a country that’s so multicultural, and there’s so many different cultures here, and they all bring something new. When I was brought up, my grandparents would tell me stories of when they came to Australia and the food that they brought. And I feel like now it’s even changing again, and I feel like we’re very, very lucky to have this food scene here, especially in Melbourne, that’s so different, and you can go out and have cuisines from around the world, and they’re all top-notch. There’s a lot of places you go, you don’t get that.
Can I ask about your necklace – is it a red chilli?
It’s a Sicilian thing. They call it a corno, which is like a horn. It’s like the evil eye in Greek culture, and it’s meant to bring protection and good luck.
Well, it worked!
Yeah, I wear it every day.
What’s it been like being back at work in the hospital while the show’s been on TV. I saw some comments on Facebook where a patient said, “Oh, Vinnie pulled out my tube the other day, and he’s such a nice young man.”
It was difficult going back to work, to be honest. Coming from doing what I loved every single day to going back to nursing – and nursing is, there’s no sugarcoating it, it’s not the nicest job in the world in terms of what you see and what you do, it’s very emotional, it’s sad oftentimes – but to make a difference is really important, and that’s why I still do love it. But it’s good being back at work in the sense of I have patients, or [other] people have patients that are like not doing so well, and obviously, they’re very sad. And then my friends would be like, “Oh, do you watch MasterChef? Vinnie’s here.” And then I’d come in and put a smile on their face. That’s pretty cool. Nursing is still very close to my heart, but I might chop the hours.
Well, what are you going to do next? Have you spent any of your $250,000 yet?
Not yet. At the moment I want to take every single opportunity that I can get and make the most of it, and practise and actually work in the field of hospitality, in restaurants that I can take things from and learn before I actually go out and do anything by myself. I feel like it would be dumb to just go out on a limb and not have any experience at all. I want to do a pop-up with Casper and Annabel, and I was thinking about doing a pop-up and some paninis, maybe like once a week. I don’t want to rush, but I also want to make the most of it.
So what was your celebratory meal, after you found out you won?
We just went to the pub to watch the show, and because it’s our local, they put [the final] on. I had my family and friends there, and I just had a parmie. You can’t go past a good parmie at the pub.
MasterChef Australia is now streaming on 10Play.
