Category — George Calombaris

Spotted online today on The Australian, is this George Calombaris?  Has George Calombaris ditched the Masterchef Australia set to really protest about the industrial relations laws in Australia? Surely they are not THAT bad.

I suspect it is just a doppelganger but the resemblance is eerie.

George Calombaris has managed to piss me off and he is not even bouncing on our TV screens in Masterchef Australia.

Yesterday George Calombaris took aim at Julia Gillard’s Fair Work Laws saying that paying penalty rates were crippling his business.

In an interview with the Power Index he moaned:

“The problem is that wages on public holidays and weekends greatly exceed the opportunity for profit…It’s just not a good business practice to be paying penalty rates. It’s really difficult to stay open and we only do it because of tourism but the reality is it’s uneconomical.”

“So our labour laws are something that need to be looked at and we keep talking about it.”

Morale must have been pretty low in George’s many restaurants last night, knowing that he did not think he should have to pay higher rates on the days of the week that people traditionally spend with family and friends.

Also I suspect George may have conveniently forgotten that he was probably paid penalty rates when he was younger and working as an employee.

He would probably prefer the US model where the customer subsidises the wage cost, with a minimum wage of $2.00 an hour and the diner is expected to tip 20 per cent of the bill to make up the wage short fall.

In the article George mentions his outgoings, one of which is a $45,000 pasta machine. A machine he has bought to decrease the labour required in the kitchen, something I don’t have a problem with, however, whining about paying minimum award wages for the staff you do have is a bit off, particularly when you own multiple business.

Let’s get this straight he is not some struggling small business owner.

George should also know that if the service is no good in his high end restaurants then the customer won’t come back no matter how good the food is. These people are essential in ensuring George can buy his imported cars, or just ensure that his partner does not have to work and look after their child full time.  A luxury a lot of families don’t have these days.

Seriously George appears to follow the Gerry Harvey business model where laws and policies should be there to ensure more money can be made on the millions they already have.

News flash George – These laws are in place to ensure unscrupulous employers have wages and conditions in place for people who due to education or life circumstances are unable to negotiate for themselves. For example like new immigrants who George’s parents once were.

Also if you are so fixated about fair wages what about giving some of yours back for the dud ratings Junior Masterchef produced in 2011, a show he was host and judge on.

UPDATE: The debate continues on this blog here with this guy writing an interesting article.

An issue I have been thinking about since seeing this tweet from Gary Mehigan who tweets @crispycrackling “George takes hammering over penalty rates, but the big question “is the weekend still family day? Half day closing Saturday & closed Sunday?”

By the way I think Gary looks pretty good in his twitter avatar maybe he lost some weight in the Masterchef off season.

Now I really need to move onto another story as this is not trashy reality blog not a political one, however the question must be asked is whether Sunday is now family day for the middle class, and if you are poor, a new migrant or a student it should just be considered another work day.

I saw this on the Media Week YouTube Channel and thought it was hilarious, and how well do this kids do George and Gary Mehigan from Masterchef Australia?

Woman’s Day have a nice photo spread of George Calombaris and his new baby James.

What amazed me is that the Masterchef Australia judge is only 32 years old. He has done a lot in that time. Multiple restaurants in Melbourne as well as ones in Mykynos, Greece.

Very impressive, also it appears he is loving being a dad. His partner Natalie seems lovely also. More photos of him on the Woman’s Day website.

George Calombaris and his partner Natalie Tricario are reported to have been paid a swag of money by a magazine for the first shots of baby James George Calombaris.  They left hospital yesterday and kept the baby well wrapped up. (Source: Herald Sun)

I think it fine that George is selling the photos and story of the birth, however the downside is don’t start complaining about privacy. I must confess I am looking forward to see the photos, to see if he looks like his father.

The timing of the birth means George will be at the announcement of the winner on Sunday night. Masterchef Australia’s final starts at 6.30pm I will be live blogging.

In what could be the reality TV baby of the year, George Calombaris, from Masterchef Australia welcomed a baby boy into the world.

Well it was really his partner Natalie Tircario who did the hard work. No news yet on a name.

Congratulations George and Natalie.

UPDATE: @womansdaylucy says it is a good chance the name will be James George Calombaris.

Source: Daily Telegraph

In Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living section there was a Qantas Holidays advertisement saying Meet the Chefs in South Australia.

Qantas Holidays is offering an exclusive opportunity to meet some of South Australia’s famous foodies and Callum is classified as one of them.

Callum Hann is advertised for a dinner from $195 per person. Granted to you get four courses plus drinks and a chance to chat to him, however what are his culinary credentials? He was last year’s runner up on Masterchef Australia, and he did three months internship at George Calombaris’s restaurants in Melbourne and decided becoming a chef was not for him. I would think he is a good amateur cook at best.

I am sure he is a nice guy, however all I can remember from his time on the show was his skill with desserts.

Would you go? If you want to his dinners are on the 11th and 18th of May. Go to Qantas Holidays if you are interested.

The other chefs who are putting on dinners in June are Maggie Beer, and Mark McNamara.

In other Masterchef Australia news George Calombaris is being sounded out to run the eating establishments at the newly refurbished Hellenic Club in Sydney. I hope so I ate at his Press Room bar and it was sensational. In fact his prawn kataifi made the earth move for me.

Was Margaret Fulton not asked to be on Masterchef Australia this series? As this spray she gives the show and the judges seems extremely petty.

Considering her appearances on the show raised her profile to a whole new generation and treated her like a cooking icon and probably gave her the Woolworth contract she now has, it would be nice to see her be a little bit grateful.

But no the Sunday Telegraph reports:

COOKING great Margaret Fulton has unleashed on two of Australia’s biggest television programs, My Kitchen Rules and MasterChef, saying contestants cannot cook well and don’t know the basics.

Even the judges don’t escape a roasting.

Fulton has accused MasterChef’s Matt Preston of turning into a “full showman” and says George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan are fixated on earning the same large pay cheque as their cravat-wearing colleague.

Of the cooking couples on the hit Seven Network series My Kitchen Rules, which averages 1.5 million viewers, Fulton said: “I can’t be bothered watching them.

“I’ve seen enough people not cook well. I don’t want to watch people very pleased with what they’re doing but doing everything wrong.”

Fulton also whacked MasterChef, the Network Ten program she has actually starred on as a guest judge.

“What I found on MasterChef when I was on it, some of the basic things the contestants were trying to do – they didn’t know the basic things, such as pastry making,” she said.

The outburst from the 86-year-old came as she launched a new campaign for Woolworths – the supermarket rival of Coles, which sponsors My Kitchen Rules and MasterChef.

As Preston’s popularity on MasterChef grew, so did his personality, she said.

“Matt found the inner showman in himself. Now he’s found the full showman.

“Matt used to be quite a serious food journalist. He is married into a Melbourne family that’s quite conservative, and they couldn’t believe what Matt was up to.

“He’s a nice person, but he’s developing this thing like Bernard King.”

Fulton said King, who starred in the cooking show King’s Kitchen and died in 2002, had become more rude as his success skyrocketed.

Fulton also ripped into Calombaris and Mehigan.

“Matt had every reason to be self-confident, but they – although they have very successful businesses – aren’t as emotionally and mentally intelligent as Matt,” she said.

“Now it has become, ‘How much is he getting paid? If he’s getting that, I want it too.’ “

Maybe inspired by Junior Masterchef or maybe he decided it is time, but George Calombaris is having a baby with his long term girlfriend Natalie Tricarico.

The baby is due in July and of course both of them are over the moon. Congratulations to both of them. No news if the kid will have some food related name, like Sage or Apple.

It is that time of year for lists, and the Daily Telegraph has now put out their list of the 25 most influential people on TV. What was interesting was the reality stars that were on the list as well as the ones they left off.

Matt Preston was number 2 on the list, behind Jessica Marais who took out the number one spot. Also George Colambaris and Anna Gare were on there, but where was Gary Mehigan? He did not make the list. If I was him I would be feeling a tad peeved today. As I thought he proved when he was absent for two weeks from Masterchef Australia this year due to an injured knee that he brought some levity to the show.

He is a nice balance to George and Matt more exhuberant personalities, and ham acting.

Other reality stars that made the list were Manu Feidel, Danni Minogue, Peter Maddison from Grand Designs, and Scott Cam from The Block.