How can I resist talking shop with Brent Owen? When you meet a Masterchef for lunch, it is inevitable that the conversation revolves around not just food, but everything else about it. We find a corner table at the sunny, comfortable Smoke House Deli in Khan market, and first, address the question of the menus. “We don't have these long, elaborate menus back home. Usually, it's just one page long!” The Smokehouse menu is indeed extensive, filled with elaborate, delicious options, and Brent mulls over it for a while. Finally, he decides to try a buff dish. “I've never tasted buff. It should be interesting.” We place our orders; a tenderloin steak with horseradish, rosemary emulsion and jus, and a portion of chorizo piccante for me. The extensive menus disappear and our conversation begins.
The last time I saw Brent Owen, he was on TV, and had just won the sixth season of Masterchef Australia. In India to recently to promote the next season of the immensely popular Australian show, Brent also got a chance to share snippets from his journey with his Indian fans.
When his Masterchef Australia journey started, Brent was the underdog, talented, but not visible enough. “In the beginning of the show, I just learnt. I learnt to cook and I learned techniques and tricks. I identified what everyone's strengths were, and I learned from them. What you see on TV is only the final product. Behind the scene, we were always helping each other out, using the countless cookbooks in the house to practice.” What Brent feels saw him through to the end was his refusal to let himself be overwhelmed. “The competition was about food, so almost everyone spent every waking hour practicing, cooking, reading recipes. I couldn’t do that. Everyday, I took out sometime to get away from it, work out and unwind.”
His calm, collected and easy going attitude helped Brent when the competition got tougher, finally winning him the title that would become key to his culinary dreams. Interestingly, the former bobcat driver from Melbourne wants to create a niche for himself in the culinary world that harks back to his old life. His idea, he says, is to create wholesome, healthy food that is easily available to construction workers in Australia. “The construction industry has men working in it who need their strength, and need to eat healthy. But right now, they just grab whatever they can find before heading off to work.”
When our food arrives, we shift our focus to our plates. I ask Brent his opinion on the plating, and he is refreshingly frank. “It is a bit old fashioned. It doesn't look bad, but I wouldn't have piled up the steak and gravy on top of the vegetables. It makes them soggy. Also, I don’t like the streak of gravy on both sides of the plate.” The food itself, he likes. On his first bite, he gives his Masterchef approval to buff meat. “It’s cooked well, just right.” I ask him to tell me more about plating, a strength he discovered during the competition. “The first dish I cooked during auditions, I made a very simple dish, of poached chicken and beetroot. When I presented it to the judges, they saw that the chicken was pink in the middle, and thought it would be undercooked. It was a surprise for them when they discovered that it was beetroot juice staining the chicken. They liked the surprise element.” Over time, Brent says that he discovered his eye for plating, putting together beautiful looking food challenge after challenge. “I think plating is immensely important. The food might taste good, but if it is plated beautifully, you begin to eat it with your eye even before you taste it.” He points at my bowl of chorizo piccante, which isn’t really plated at all. “Now, if that was displayed in an attractive way for you, wouldn’t you enjoy it more?”
While we eat, we discuss more food, and the topic shifts to Indian cuisines. Brent is both excited about tasting different Indian dishes, and also curious about how he can adapt them back home. He’s tasted food in high end Indian restaurants as well as street food, and raves about both. A fan of traditional cooking, Brent appreciates the twists and turns of Indian cuisines fused with modern techniques. On this multi city tour, Brent hopes to expand his Indian connection, which is already pretty strong. “It’s been great to know how much people love the show here! People have been stopping me on the street when they recognise who I am. I’m overwhelmed.” That Brent has a strong fan base here is no surprise. The show, which takes a much more food focussed route and chooses to avoid the scandals and drama usually associated with other similar TV shows, is well loved in India, and the season Brent won pulled in 4.6 million viewers.
Brent's journey, he says, has only just begun. The show, he says, changed his life, and today, the people he met there are like his family. However, Brent has decided to keep his work and personal life separate, and while some other Masterchef Australia contestants have embarked on joint ventures, Brent is all right with making his own solo way. “I am still learning, but right now, I'm completely happy. This is what I was meant to do.”
