John Torode
John Douglas Torode (born 23 July 1965) is an Australian-British chef and TV presenter. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1991 to work for the Conran Group, and later appeared on ITV's This Morning. In 2005 he became a host of MasterChef on BBC One, a role he held until 2025. Torode is also a restaurateur and author of several cookbooks, including The Mezzo Cookbook, Sydney to Seoul, My Kind of Food, and John and Lisa's Kitchen with his wife Lisa Faulkner. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 for services to food and charity.
Torode grew up in Melbourne and New South Wales. His mother died when he was four, and his grandmother taught him to cook. He started cooking at 16 and moved to the UK in 1991, working as a sous-chef at Le Pont de la Tour and Quaglino's for the Conran Group, where he met Gregg Wallace. He opened Smiths of Smithfield in London in 2000 and later Cafeteria near Notting Hill Gate.
He has presented many travel and cooking shows, including John Torode's Australia, Argentina, Malaysian Adventure, Korea, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as Ireland. He co-hosts John And Lisa's Weekend Kitchen with Lisa Faulkner on ITV, and they created John & Lisa's Food Trip Down Under. Torode has four children. He was married to Jessica Thomas from 2000 to 2014 and started dating Lisa Faulkner in 2015; they married in 2019.
Controversy: In July 2025 Banijay said an internal probe found he used racist language in 2018–2019 related to allegations about Gregg Wallace; Torode apologized, saying he does not recall the incident, and his MasterChef contract was not renewed.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:20 (CET).