No one would be game to turn the televisions at Season’s Restaurant at Peppers Salt Resort over tonight – it will be all eyes on Masterchef.
You see, the star of the show (or at least some of it) is none other than the Tweed Coast-based Peppers Executive Chef Reuben Radonich. Not bad for a boy who learnt to cook with his mum at eight and continued his love of cooking, doing food technology at Murwillumbah High School.
“I hosted a Masterchef rewards lunch back in February,” Reuben said of tonight’s appearance on the Logie award winning ratings behemoth on Southern Cross/Ten tonight.
“We hosted the event to officially launch Seasons as a new restaurant.”
The successful contestants not only got to eat the three-course meal but they were able to have a “master class” with Reuben and talk about the amazing local produce showcased in the show.
“I was a bit nervous before the filming,” the Byron Born, Tweed raised, chef admitted.
“Now I just can’t wait to see it.”
Not that it was his first brush with televisual fame.
“I have been on Fresh with Ben O’Donoghue before,” he laughed.
“But that screened early in the afternoon and this is prime-time with millions of people watching.”
Filmed on location on the Tweed Coast, the contestants sample some of Reuben’s (and the region’s) finest cuisine, including local pork and fish, before stepping behind the bench at Season for a lesson in how to prepare the dishes.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Reuben, who started work at the golf club in Murwillumbah at 15 before heading north to study at the Ashmore TAFE and completing his apprenticeship at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort.
He has worked at an array of Five Star resorts on the Gold Coast as well as working at Radisson Blue Portman Hotel in London, La Moinerie Hotel in Sark in the Channel Islands and Q1 before returning home with his wife and young daughter to work and live on the Tweed Coast.
Reuben’s cooking style has mostly been influenced by his own zeal for cooking and the diversities of Australian culture.
Driven by a passion for discovering new local produce, he adapts classic cooking techniques, combined with modern presentation, something that is perfectly demonstrated in his signature dish, Bangalow pork belly braised in tamarind and rock sugar, with Tweed River mud crab, green papaya and mango salad, finger limes, and chili caramel dressing.
Masterchef screens weeknights at 7.30pm on Southern Cross/Ten.
