You’ll Want to Watch This: Celebrity MasterChef NL Is Here, Packed with Culinary Drama and Highlights

Be honest, you’ve probably felt a huge amount of pressure in the kitchen at some point too, right? Whether it was because you were short on time, had taken on a far too complicated recipe or dish, or because someone was watching your every move; none of it is relaxing. Now imagine adding a camera to the mix, as well as being a famous Dutch person… Exactly why the new Celebrity MasterChef NL is so much fun.

Celebrity MasterChef NL

You may be familiar with the TV program MasterChef. Amateur cooks competed in an elimination race for the title of MasterChef, and during its five seasons on TV there was a whole string of famous judges, including top chefs Robert Kranenborg, Julius Jaspers and Michiel van der Eerde, as well as FavorFlav’s founding editor Marcus Polman.

Lots of famous Dutch faces

The program’s ‘comeback’ still features a highly knowledgeable trio of judges: top chefs Soenil Bahadoer and Angélique Schmeink, and NRC critic Joël Broekaert. This season’s twist, however, is that the contestants are famous Dutch people – while one viewer may not know every contestant for anything in particular, another viewer may perk up at the sight of that specific media personality.

The cast consists of Eurovision star Jeangu Macrooy, First Dates bartender Victor Abeln, presenter Jetske van den Elsen, Vjeze Fur from De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, radio host Erik de Zwart, influencer Amijé Roos van der Laan, radio host Céline Huijsmans, actress Stijn Fransen, artist and tattooist Louise Schiffmacher (the wife of Henk Schiffmacher) and comedian Howard Komproe.

Red carpet

We attended the press premiere of this new Celebrity MasterChef NL, and let me tell you: I thought it was top-notch entertainment. And that’s coming from someone who doesn’t like reality shows at all! Jacuzzi drama, arguments about exes, cheating under the covers while a night camera is recording it: they can all keep it. But this! I found this funny and exciting.

Striving for perfection

That’s undoubtedly because I enjoy cooking and do it often, and sometimes definitely feel deep stress because I can set the bar fairly high. Not necessarily with very complicated dishes, but whatever I make should preferably be perfect. And the tension in this program was very easy to relate to.

Add to that the fact that these contestants are familiar with the media, and therefore generally have their answers ready when they are interviewed in the ‘in-between’ segments. That produces some amusing quotes, especially because the episode is edited so compellingly. The release of tension was palpable, both at the end of the episode and during the screening.

So if you have even a little affinity with culinary matters and cooking (and you probably do, since you read FavorFlav after all), there’s a very good chance you’ll really enjoy this program. Tonight (Friday, September 30), the first episode will air on the (paid) streaming service ViaPlay, which is fairly new in the Netherlands.

What do you think?

And would you like to read what the judges and contestants themselves had to say at the premiere? Then we have some personal quotes from the day itself for you below. Not all contestants were able to attend, but we didn’t want to keep these quotes from you!

• Joël Broekaert: ‘As judges, we naturally had to try to keep some distance from the contestants. But there was nothing we could do about it; at some point you really start to love them a little.’
• Angélique Schmeink: ‘I saw it as my goal to give the contestants an understanding of how flavors are built. Why does something work (or not work) in combination with another ingredient? In that way, I hoped they would learn how to really complete a dish.’
• Soenil Bahadoer: ‘Every now and then I had to be reined in a little because apparently I was too strict. But sometimes it really was enough to make you cry, hahaha!’
• Vjeze Fur, in his typical accent: ‘The pressure was high because I already have two Lekker Fred cookbooks to my name. So if you really want to see me stress, you should watch this.’
• Amijé van der Laan: ‘Before the coronavirus pandemic, I focused much more on lifestyle and fashion through my Instagram. But because of the pandemic, I rediscovered cooking completely and started doing much more with it on my channels. That allowed me to reach a completely different audience; so much fun!’
• Jetske van den Elsen: ‘I’ve taken a cooking course before, but this is completely different. Everything was unfamiliar. I didn’t have any complete blackouts, but it was incredibly nerve-racking.’
• Victor Abeln: ‘Because I’m a bartender, I set myself the goal of incorporating alcohol into everything. The fun part about that: you can set anything on fire!’
• Louise Schiffmacher: ‘At home I have a gas stove with five burners, three of which work. I can do everything on that. And what I learned from this program: no way in hell is an induction cooktop ever coming into my home.’
• Jeangu Macrooy: ‘I’m a flexitarian and don’t often cook with meat. So there were quite a few challenges here, but I always enjoy diving in at the deep end.’
• Stijn Fransen: ‘As soon as we entered the kitchen, I ran to my notebook. When I saw the ingredients, I tried to remember whether Jamie Oliver had ever made a recipe with them that I knew, and then I immediately wrote it down as well as I could as a guideline!’

In short, we think Celebrity MasterChef NL is highly recommended. It’s entertaining, looks fantastic, and the contestants and judges provide plenty of fun and opportunities to empathize. You can’t watch it via cable, so you do need a paid ViaPlay subscription. But if you also enjoy sports, Scandinavian crime series and new Dutch drama series once they arrive, then the investment in yet another streaming service will probably be worth it!

Image: Tony Perez/SKIRR

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