{"id":273257,"date":"2026-02-08T03:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/273257\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T03:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:55:08","slug":"nzs-actual-badass-chefs-battle-it-out-for-chance-to-showcase-creative-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/273257\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ\u2019s \u201cactual badass chefs\u201d battle it out for chance to showcase creative genius"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges Vaughan Mabee and Melissa Leong: Looking for creative magic. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Vaughan Mabee is sweating. Our conversation will have to be quick, he says, because he\u2019s on the job at \u201cthe world\u2019s best restaurant \u2013 and bro, the people are paying like $3300 a head\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n Mabee, the executive chef at Queenstown\u2019s Amisfield, is on the line from Copenhagen\u2019s famed Alchemist restaurant,
\n whose owner, Rasmus Munk, has invited a group of chefs from around the world to work on a collaborative menu project called Conversions. When he says he\u2019s \u201cunder the dome right now\u201d, he\u2019s referring to the 18m dome over the dining room, which creates a planetarium-like visual experience for diners to accompany the spectacular food.\n <\/p>\n

Alchemist\u2019s food-as-art philosophy is a link to Mabee\u2019s role back home as a judge alongside Australian food critic Melissa Leong on Taste of Art, an elimination show in which teams of professional chefs are tasked with creating dishes that not only taste superior but meet the artistic theme they\u2019re given each week. He has previously been a MasterChef NZ judge but Taste of Art is, he says, very different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis show is more real. These are actual badass chefs who are creative \u2013 some of them trained in Michelin-starred restaurants around the world \u2012 competing against each other. And the food is way more creative and vibrant and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, if you were looking for a comparison, it wouldn\u2019t be a cooking show but Lego Masters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was actually my little take on it,\u201d says Taste of Art\u2019s producer Simon Fleming, who has worked on MasterChef NZ, Lego Masters and My Kitchen Rules. \u201cIt\u2019s Lego Masters for cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AsAs head chefs, or working under other people, this is their chance to get outside the box and showcase what they’ve got. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a first: the format is created and owned by Screentime and the show was shot at the company\u2019s Remarkables production studio in Queenstown, where A Remarkable Place to Die was also shot (perhaps making this A Remarkable Place to Fry). It\u2019s a very Queenstown production.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a scary show to make because it\u2019s so fresh,\u201d says Fleming. \u201cMasterChef was like, you\u2019ve got two hours to make a duck dish \u2013 this is, you\u2019ve got six hours to do whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenges of putting together an entirely new show with no production bible are apparent sometimes \u2013 the first episode looks to have been made in a hurry with the editors perhaps not getting all the shots they needed. But the competing chef duos (see next page) are a real strength, not least for their personal stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I decided to become a chef my mum didn\u2019t speak to me for two months,\u201d explains Ankita Chakravarty in the first episode. The decision \u201cwas actually hard for my family\u201d, who didn\u2019t regard being a chef as a proper job for a woman.<\/p>\n

There are also intriguing glimpses into the rapport between the chefs. Their words to each other are the truest dialogue in the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be really linked to someone to work well with them,\u201d says Mabee. \u201cIn most successful kitchens, everyone has a strong love for each other and respects everyone. When you unite together with that kind of vision or drive and you go into the same creative, that\u2019s when the magic happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of the chefs have worked under Mabee in the 16 years he\u2019s been executive chef at Amisfield and they are all, he says, \u201cyounger-generation chefs; they\u2019re head chefs or they\u2019re working under people, so they don\u2019t get a complete chance to get outside the box and show their creative genius. And this was a chance for them \u2013 they were super excited to showcase that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleming says, \u201cIt\u2019s giving creative people this massive creative space. You\u2019ve got six hours to cook something incredible. It\u2019s a bonkers show.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one really screws up a dish in the first couple of episodes, but over seven parts, says Mabee, \u201ceveryone had a few mess-ups. And you know what? We all do. That\u2019s all part of it. The more times you mess up, the better you are.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn old chief once told me, until you serve someone a slightly raw chicken, you never cook a perfect chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that, he\u2019s back to making some art in a kitchen. <\/p>\n

\"KitchenKitchen creatives: The\u00a0contestants in the first\u00a0season of Taste of Art. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The Chefs<\/p>\n

Ankita Chakravarty & Tan Duy Tran, Tamarind No 5, Queenstown<\/p>\n

Josh Phillips & Bailey Mckenzie, Aosta, Arrowtown<\/p>\n

Giulio Barducci & Pier Italiano, Toast and Oak, Queenstown<\/p>\n

Tommy Hope & Dani Puskar, Tala, Auckland<\/p>\n

Yahsan Yu & Roy Hwang, independent, Queenstown<\/p>\n

Taste of Art begins on TVNZ 1, at 7.30pm on Thursday, February 19, and streams on TVNZ+<\/p>\n

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Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judges Vaughan Mabee and Melissa Leong: Looking for creative magic. Photo \/ Supplied Vaughan Mabee is sweating. Our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9331,154258,154256,154257,5837,17517,3390,135772,53988,21335,33118,156,2082,103103,305,106,5420,702,13840,154245,111,139,69,3272,3111,17096,384,16156,2539,312,19093,81044,223,61,86365,1533,17450],"class_list":["post-273257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chance","tag-154258","tag-actual","tag-badass","tag-battle","tag-because","tag-best","tag-bro","tag-chefs","tag-conversation","tag-creative","tag-entertainment","tag-for","tag-genius","tag-have","tag-head","tag-hes","tag-it","tag-like","tag-mabee","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nzs","tag-out","tag-paying","tag-people","tag-quick","tag-restaurant","tag-says","tag-showcase","tag-sweating","tag-the","tag-to","tag-vaughan","tag-will","tag-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}