Amartya Smaran
Chef Gary Mehigan is now enjoying a slow pace of life after selling his two famous restaurants and a catering company. He promised himself that after parting ways as a judge with the iconic cooking reality show MasterChef Australia, he’d only take up projects that he was extremely passionate about. He says he made up his mind to associate himself with companies and institutions that he could resonate with on a deeper level.
As part of a unique series called Indian Stories with Gary & Friends, Chef Gary Mehigan recently made his presence felt in the city. The renowned chef, along with Chef Saransh Goila, conducted a Conosh-classified masterclass for the first time in India at the Trident Hotel, Hyderabad.
Conosh is a virtual platform that is committed to promoting home chefs, bakers, and deliveries of home-cooked food. The company’s motto is to bring people together over home food. The platform enables home chefs to upskill themselves by signing up for workshops and masterclasses conducted by MasterChefs and experts from across the globe.
“I associate myself only with companies and institutions that I really feel connected with,” said Chef Gary. “Conosh is one of them. Not so much Conosh, but the people who work for the founders and Conosh itself are just enthusiastic and love food. It’s really nice to be surrounded by people of like minds. And coming backwards and forward to India is a bit of a dream.”
The chef has lost count of the number of times he has visited India, but don’t worry. He gave us a rough estimate (haha). “This is my 16th or 17th trip to India!” remarked Gary.
“I’ve been coming to India since 2010, but since last September, I’ve been filming a National Geographic India series called Mega Festivals. I’ve been here about five times. This stretch is three weeks long. Hyderabad, Delhi, and Madurai in Tamil Nadu are on the list.”
Gary has already begun filming for National Geographic India’s Mega Festivals in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. During his time in Hyderabad, Gary captured the essence of Hyderabadi cuisine in the auspicious Ramzan season.
“We filmed here for Eid. We did half of the story here and the other half in Delhi. We covered things like Haleem, Nizami House, and morning prayer— all part of Eid-ul-Fitr. It’s been quite an experience. More so than food— more cultural, more understanding of people’s devotion, love, and celebration. Filming around Charminar, for example, has been a really wonderful trip,” said the chef.
The chef has really worked hard in his career to achieve a good life-work balance. He says it’s almost blended to the point where he can’t see the difference between work and play. Gary has had a fantastic television career. He started off with Good Morning Australia with Bert Newton and a couple of other popular daytime TV shows. However, it was Good Chef/Bad Chef (his first standalone series) that prepared him for his illustrious TV career. That’s where he learned the ins and outs of the television business.
“I did a TV series called Good Chef/Bad Chef for a small company called Hsquared,” explained Gary, and he gave us the lowdown on how he made sense of the camera in the early stages of his career. “One of the directors, Lee Redlick, was a real mentor. He made sense of the camera and the studio for me. I still tell young aspiring journalists or people that are breaking into it that the lens is for people sitting on couches that you know. Then you don’t feel awkward about it, and so I can talk to you through the lens, and I imagine that instead of it being a dark piece of glass, it’s for people that are interested in what you say.”
If you’re an aspiring chef who’s determined to build a career in the television world, Chef Gary has some advice for you. “He(Lee Redlick) also said to me that what you’ve got to realise is that food is just a conduit for conversation and a kind of expression of passion. It doesn’t matter what you’re cooking, but you’ve got to express that passion and that kind of excitement for whatever you’re doing. What happens with a lot of professionals is that if they’re demonstrating something on television, they become consumed with the food, rather than the people that are watching. You just want people to walk away and go, ‘I want to cook that!’”
The virtuoso has been in the industry for 35 years. Commenting on the major changes he observed in the food industry, he said, “Worldwide, engagement has gone through the roof. Social media has changed everything. The transfer of information is instantaneous. If you look back at my career, when I first started cooking, recipes were hard. You had to learn from a mentor. They would pass down those recipes like a drip, and they would become something that you cherished. Now social media has changed the dynamic completely. You can seek inspiration almost instantaneously.”
The chef wrapped up the interview by adding: “For example, 20 years ago, the depth and knowledge of the Indian audience about Italian or Japanese cuisines might’ve been minimal. Whereas now, a new Ramen bar opens up in Hyderabad, and everybody goes. We want to live and travel vicariously through food. You want to sit at that bar, slurp some noodles, drink a Sapporo beer, and feel transported into a narrow street in Kyoto!”
