Between Poh Ling Yeow’s stunning Coconut Laced Pancakes and Adriano Zumbo’s dreaded Croquembouche, MasterChef Australia is known for its unforgettable dishes.
But less is said about the dishes that we’d like to forget. Thankfully, longtime judge Andy Allen is spilling some tea on the one dish he almost ‘spat out’.
Andy told PEDESTRIAN.TV’s podcast Villain Edit that the worst plate of food ever served on MasterChef Australia came from season 13’s Tommy Pham in 2021.
Wait, is this the same Tommy Pham who served up delicious Vietnamese delicacies like Bánh Cuốn and Banh Canh Cua? Apparently, one of Tommy’s more experimental dishes was not a pleasant eating experience.
“He did this oyster dish and it was, I’ve tried to delete it from my mind, oyster with buttermilk, fish sauce, chive, dill, and it just didn’t work,” Andy said.
“Bland food, under-seasoned food, you get your fair share of that. But that was one where I was like, that’s the closest I’ve been to spitting something out in seven years.”
That said, Andy reckons that one of his own dishes was a big dud from when he won MasterChef Australia back in 2012.
“It was in front of Massimo Bottura — very famous, he’s been voted the number one chef in the world for many years. He came around, and he was like, ‘I hate offal’, which surprised me,” he said, recapping a challenge in Rome.
“And then not only that, but I overcooked the absolute s**t out of this offal, and it was then served cold. So he was an offal hater with all of the lamb’s offal cold and shrivelled up in front of him. I felt for him.”
How many dishes has Andy Allen tasted on MasterChef Australia?
In an interview with Chattr in 2025, Andy shared the staggering number of dishes he had to taste in a single season. And oh boy, I hope he’s hungry!
“We’ll do some math here. I think in the first week of filming [MasterChef Australia 2025], I tried over 100 dishes. Multiply that by what? How many weeks do you reckon we film? I reckon 25 weeks. So we’re talking about 2500 dishes just in one season,” he said.
Ummm. Wow.
But Andy doesn’t have any complaints about the thousands of dishes. “I think that’s the beauty of my job, I just get to try so much good food. It’s not the beauty of my waistline, because it’s a lot of food and it’s a constant battle not to absolutely devour anything that’s put in front of me,” he said.
MasterChef Australia airs on Sunday at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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