The husband and wife team, Jamandi and Machiel Bekker from Bloemfontein walked away with the R1 million prize money on Sunday and season 1 of My Kitchen Rules South Africa #MKRSA came to an end.
But there are quite a few things you probably didn’t know about season 1 that are quite interesting.
A bromance was formed
#MKRSA judges J Something and Chef David Higgs have a very real broamance.
The two obviously spent a lot of time together during filming and solidified their friendship.
But they have actually been pals for sometime before they joined the #MKRSA team.
In his recently published cookbook, actually features one of Higgs’ recipes and writes: “David chose the pork cheeks because it was one of the first products I bought from his butchery and he remembers chatting to me over the phone and giving me his views on how it should be cooked.”
Cuteness overload!
Instant restaurants were not so instant
The instant restaurants looked like so much fun when they were broadcast, but it was really quite tricky.
The production team made it look good, but imagine an entire film crew descending on your home and squeezing into your kitchen and dining room!
There were quite a few tight squeezes around the dining room tables.
Kids loved the show
Chef Higgs was the first to point out that the first season of #MKRSA was a hit with the kids.
He says that children have become mini judges themselves, looking for the flavour profiles of the food their parents now make.
Higgs says he’s heard that there are many budding mini-chefs in SA now, thanks to #MKRSA.
The winners had more than luck on their side
Jamandi and Machiel say they had a bit of divine intervention when they entered #MKRSA. The couple auditioned for the show on their 10th wedding anniversary.
They took this as a good sign of things to come and when the cooking got tough they relied on that special sign to give them an extra burst of energy.
There was minimal drama
Besides a little drama about where contestants were being honest when they rated each other’s dishes (here’s looking at you Zama), there was actually more love than drama among the home cooks.
Many of them have remained friends (filming ended a few months ago) and stayed in contact.
So despite the tagline of “Come for the food, stay for the drama,” it seems like the contestants were happy to stay for the food and the friendships.
Auditions for Season 2 start in January