Scottish chef Jock Zonfrillo, winner of the 2018 Basque Culinary World Prize award and one of the renowned stars of the MasterChef Australia program, died suddenly in Melbourne at the age of 46, family sources reported Monday.
“With a totally broken heart and not knowing how we can continue to live without him, we are devastated to report that Jock passed away yesterday,” said a statement posted Monday on Zonfrillo’s Instagram account.
Without giving details of the cause of death, the family asked that their grief and privacy be respected.
Australian television network Network 10 and the show’s producer MasterChef Australia said in a joint statement that they are “deeply shocked by the sudden death of Jock Zonfrillo.”
Likewise, MasterChef Australia announced the postponement of the transmission of the new season of the series, which would premiere this Monday, and noted that it will not broadcast episodes throughout this week.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of an Italian father and a Scottish mother, Zonfrillo became an apprentice in a well-known restaurant in his native country at the age of fifteen and, later, was part of the gastronomic team of renowned British chef Marco Pierre White, as well as other world famous restaurants.
After moving to Australia in 2000, Zonfrillo opened Bistro Blackwood and Orana Restaurant in the city of Adelaide, also establishing the Orana Foundation to preserve Aboriginal food knowledge.
His Orana restaurant, named Restaurant of the Year in 2018 by Gourmet Traveler magazine, was recognized with three hats in 2019 by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s Guide to Good Food.
Zonfrillo’s fame reached Spain, where he became known at the San Sebastián Gastronomika 2016 festival thanks to his work in recovering the culinary traditions of Australian aborigines and, two years later, he won the Basque Culinary World Prize, that seeks to distinguish chefs with “transformative initiatives”.
“Jock’s charisma, sharp sense of humour, generosity, passion and love for food and his family cannot be measured. He will be sorely missed,” MasterChef Australia posted on Facebook paying tribute to Zonfrillo, who was a jury of that program in 2019.
In recent years, Zonfrillo, who leaves behind his wife Lauren Fried and four children, has been plunged into various financial problems that forced him to close his restaurants -including Orana- during covid-19.
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