Henry for MasterChef 2025 / BBC
Age: 32
Occupation: Retail Business Manager
From: Kent via Reading
How would you describe your style of cooking?
“My principal cooking motivation is food greed. I cook things so my partner and I can scoff them. With this comes a lot of cooking variation, as I get bored cooking and eating the same thing again (other than maybe fresh pasta). I also like to cook things that you have to build or compile. So elaborate pies, dumplings anything that feels more like a craft session. I get most of my inspiration from cookbooks – I have about 130 and to be honest would love even more.
“My first cooking influences were modern British, plus Italian food. The first impressive bit of food I learned to cook was fresh pasta. I also got obsessed with making pizza at home and I was an early buyer of a portable home pizza oven back in 2014. I have spent many years throwing pizza parties. What’s better than a pizza? Since then, other influences have been Japanese food and more recently Southeast Asian food. I like to learn about new cuisines so will often jump around between different types of food.”
What is your favourite ingredient to cook with and why?
“Salt is definitely my favourite ingredient; it completely changes food.”
Why did you enter MasterChef this year?
“This was my third time applying, but the first time I got through to the first round. You can’t keep a keen cook down! So, it wasn’t so much about entering it this year rather the cooking stars aligned this year. But generally, I entered because the competition looks so much fun! I think I’d enjoy the process, and I’d love my chop-of-a-knife to be edited to line up with the beat drop in the MasterChef action music.”
MasterChef continues weekly on BBC One and iPlayer.
