Former MasterChef contestant Ava Stangherlin also shares some wonderful news.
If you watched MasterChef last night, you’d know that contestant Ava Stangherlin was sent packing for her failed attempt at the classic French dish, duck a l’orange.
But little did the former Gap merchandise manager know, that this would be the best outcome for her career.
The 23-year-old exclusively told iVillage that on her ride home, she decided to call up, Tom Deadman, the head chef at Woollahra eatery Hotel Centennial and call in a favour.
“I had done work experience with him [Tom Deadman] and I wanted to ask for advice because he seemed really supportive of me. So he said come in and we’ll teach you,” she told iVillage.
But for Stangherlin, the pressure of being in a real kitchen was very intense. “I was so frightened, but I did not expect the welcoming that I received. They were just awesome and really sweet.”
"I'd be there working with the the pasty chefs and making something and then the guy on processing would be like, 'Ava come over here! I'm just about to do something awesome with this snapper!' And I'd be like, 'Oh, okay. Great! Wow!' It was just not the way that everyone describes their first time in the kitchen," Stangherlin revealed.
Yet it paid off when she was offered a full time position. But Stangherlin says being in the Woollahra eatery is even more intense than being in the MasterChef kitchen. "It was very, very real. There was no you know... bakery challenge... we don't have pies to sell for an hour and a half. If you don't get your food up on time it's not okay."
"People are paying for high quality food in a fine dining restaurant, so it's not like you can just walk out and apologise and say, 'Hi I'm Ava from the Blue Team, sorry we don't have your brownies,'" she continued.
