New MasterChef co-host exhibits Grace under fire

Food critic Grace Dent steps up to the plate in the first series since Gregg Wallace's fall from grace. Nick Hilton tunes in

- Nick Hilton

For the past year, the MasterChef franchise has been in crisis. Thirty-five years after it first appeared on British telly, the format was plunged into disarray when allegations of inappropriate onset behaviour were made against its (seemingly) avuncular host, Gregg Wallace. Those accusations were followed by questions about the conduct of Wallace’s co- presenter, John Torode, leading to the pair being sacked by the corporation last summer. But, like the BBC itself, not even the stain of permacrisis can derail operations for too long, and now Celebrity MasterChef is back, with a fresh face in the mix.

“Brand-new kitchen, brand-new celebrities, and brand-new judge,” introduces Torode, who filmed this series before his fate was sealed, “Grace Dent!” Dent is a familiar face around these parts, having frequently served as a guest judge across the various series after making her name as one of the country’s finest, and most biting, restaurant critics. “I’ve eaten in thousands of restaurants,” she observes wryly, when she is handed an unsightly bowl of tossed chickpeas. “And never have I had deconstructed hummus.”

This is, after all, the creative runt of the MasterChef litter. If MasterChef: The Professionals is competence porn, and the regular version of MasterChef an everyman fantasy, then