{"id":411422,"date":"2026-04-22T08:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T08:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:23:09","slug":"irish-masterchef-the-professionals-finalist-mark-obrien-after-episode-one-came-out-i-was-having-conversations-id-never-been-able-to-have-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411422\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Masterchef: The Professionals finalist Mark O\u2019Brien &#8211; \u2018After episode one came out, I was having conversations I\u2019d never been able to have before\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nFrom staging at US barbecue joints to competing in the prestigious TV competition and now owning his own restaurant, Mark O\u2019Brien has come a long way since his days studying science at UCD&#8230;\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mark O'Brien on MasterChef: The Professionals. Photo: BBC\/Shine TV\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9f6634aa-ccab-4ca3-bd79-940c3a395669.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Mark O&#8217;Brien on MasterChef: The Professionals. Photo: BBC\/Shine TV<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was a pleasant surprise to see Dubliner Mark O\u2019Brien (35) enter the kitchen on MasterChef: The Professionals on the BBC. Not only did he do well in the competition, filmed over 10 weeks last year and finally reaching screens this February, he was one of the cooks to make the final \u2014 and the only Irish finalist in the show\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Judges Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt chose Gareth Baty as the winner, but by no means was O\u2019Brien defeated by the loss. At the time of our conversation, he is finishing up as head chef at Willy\u2019s in Margate, Kent, where he lives with his wife and their cat, Juniper. He is opening his own restaurant in the coming weeks. O\u2019Brien, sunny and enthusiastic, speaks to me at home with Juniper regularly padding across his laptop. Cats don\u2019t care about interviews, you see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From staging at US barbecue joints to competing in the prestigious TV competition and now owning his own&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,102,6361,5762,812],"class_list":["post-411422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-italy","tag-life-magazine","tag-ucd","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}