Jock Zonfrilo (1976-2023) was a Scottish television presenter and chef, best known for his role as a judge on MasterChef Australia. He is also known for being the founder of the Orana Foundation.
Wiki/Biography
Jock Zonfrilo was born Barry Zonfrilo on Wednesday, August 4, 1976 in Glasgow, Scotland (age 46; time of death). His zodiac sign is Leo. His mother’s family were Scottish as they belonged to Dalmellington in Ayrshire, while his father’s family came from Scully in Italy. He attended Belmont College in Ayr, Scotland, leaving school at the age of 15. At age 13, he worked part-time as a dishwasher in the kitchen after school.
Jock Zonfrilo worked as a dishwasher at age 13
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′ 9″
Hair Color: Salt and Pepper
Eye color: gray
family
Parents and siblings
Jock’s father, Ivan Zonfrillo, was a barber.
Jock Zonfrillo’s father
His mother’s name was Sarah and she was a hairdresser. He has a sister, Kara.
wife and children
At the time of his death, he was married to marketing strategist and entrepreneur Lauren Fried. They got married on January 1, 2017.
Jock Zonfrillo wedding photos
He was married twice before marrying Lauren. Lauren and Jock have two children, son Alfie and daughter Ella. Their son was born in February 2018, two months premature and weighing only 1.2 kilograms at birth.
Jock Zonfrilo with his wife, son Alfie and daughter Isla
He has two daughters from two other marriages: Ava and Sophia.
Jock Zonfrilo’s daughters, Ava and Sophia
Relationships/Affairs
He dated Lauren Fried from 2014 to 2017.
Profession
Apprenticeship
After leaving school at the age of 15, he began working as an apprentice in the kitchen of the Turnberry Hotel in Scotland. He later joined Arkle Restaurant in Chester. He also worked for British chef Marco Pierre White.
Jock Zonfrillo before moving to Australia
chef
He moved to Australia and worked for 12 months as head chef at Restaurant 41 in Sydney. At the age of 22, he returned to the UK after a year in Australia and was appointed head chef at Trethornton Hotel in Cornwall.
restaurateur
He opened Restaurant Orana and Street ADL in Adelaide in November 2013, and Street ADL in September 2017, replacing Bistro Blackwood. In December 2018, he opened Nonna Mallozzi restaurant in Adelaide, South Australia. In July 2019, he faced losses of $140,000 and had to close Nonna Mallozzi’s restaurant. Later in 2019, he closed Bistro Blackwood and in March 2020, Orana. As a result of the restaurant closures, which left him with a massive debt of around $3.2 million, his manager Greta Wohlstadt quit her job and he traveled to Melbourne with his family in March 2020.
television
In 2014, he appeared as a guest chef on MasterChef Australia Season 6. Later in 2014, he served as host of the Discovery Channel show “Nomad Chef,” where he traveled to 10 countries and learned to gather ingredients and cook from communities. In 2015, he hosted the cooking reality TV series “Restaurant Revolution.” In 2016, he and Chef Qu Jianmin co-hosted the “Chef Exchange” program to learn about each other’s food and wine culture. In October 2019, he became one of the new judges on MasterChef Australia, along with Melissa Leong and Andy Allen. In July 2020, he also served as a judge for the Australian Junior Chef Masters competition. He was a judge on MasterChef Australia Season 15, which was set to air on May 1, 2023, but he died on the eve of its premiere. Later, the show’s release was postponed to May 7, 2023. Additionally, Network 10 has announced a special episode of The Sunday Project based on Jock’s life ahead of the show.
last shot
In 2021, he wrote a memoir called “The Last Shot.” In the book, he recounts his journey from drug addict to becoming one of Australia’s most famous chefs. According to him, he became addicted to drugs in Scotland in the 1980s. When he started taking drugs, he regularly took cocaine and pills, but in order to get high, he eventually started using heroin. At 15, he tried heroin for the first time. Later, he became addicted and started using needles. The addiction lasted for nine years and he was expelled from school and work. In the book, he also mentions that his drug addiction was his dark secret that his parents and wife didn’t know about. In an interview, he spoke about this and said:
Drugs are everywhere – we are surrounded. A lot of kids were in trouble, and I was one of them. “
In 1999, he moved to Australia and kicked his drug addiction. He said he took his final shot of heroin in a toilet at Heathrow Airport on New Year’s Eve.
Jock Zonfrier’s Memoir “The Last Shot”
dispute
Physical abuse of employees
In 2002, Jock deliberately set fire to Martin Cramer, an apprentice chef in his kitchen, because he was working very slowly. He was charged and fined $75,000 after Martin filed a complaint against him. In May 2007, Martin filed a lawsuit in federal magistrate court, accusing Jock of failing to punish him and causing him to go bankrupt.
Orana Foundation v. Media
In September 2020, Jock filed a defamation lawsuit against National News in the Australian Federal Court. The petition is based on an article about the Orana Foundation, which Jock founded in 2016 to preserve the historical cooking techniques and ingredients of Australia’s Aboriginal people. In October 2017, the foundation won the Good Food Guide’s Food for Good Award. After this achievement, the media raised many questions about his foundation’s charitable management. Proceedings were launched over the articles, and on 17 December 2020, National News issued an apology to Jock in The Australian.
Athletes in debt
On October 5, 2020, his restaurants, Restaurant Orana and Bistro Blackwood, went into voluntary administration after unpaid debts of approximately $3.2 million. The voluntary administrators have since submitted a preliminary report to ASIC to examine whether its restaurants were trading while insolvent or whether there were unfair preferences or potential breaches of directors’ duties.
last shot controversy
On July 28, 2021, Simon & Schuster published a feature in the Sydney Morning Herald about Jock’s memoir “The Last Shot.” In his memoir, he talks about his heroin addiction and visits to Aboriginal communities. In the memoir, he also refers to famed chef Marco Pierre White as a father figure, but in an interview Marco refused to help Jock, saying, “Pretty much everything he wrote about me It’s all untrue.” In another interview, Simon & Schuster discussed the book, saying it was “a historical account based on the personal knowledge of the subject who wrote it.”
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- 2011: Chef of the Year at the South Australian Food Industry Awards
- 2014: Best New Restaurant in South Australia and South Australian Restaurant of the Year, Advertiser Food Awards
- 2015: Advertiser Food Awards South Australian Restaurant of the Year
- 2015: Restaurant & Catering Awards Chef of the Year
- 2015-2016: The Australian’s 50 Hottest Restaurants
- 2017: The Australian’s hottest chefs and hottest South Australian restaurants
- 2017: Good Food Guide’s Food for Good Award
- 2018: Gourmet Traveler Magazine’s Australian Restaurant of the Year
- 2018: The Australian’s hottest chefs
- 2018: Good Food Guide’s Australian Food for Good Award
- 2018: Basque Culinary World Award from the Basque Culinary Center
- 2019: Good Food Guide Australia’s Restaurant of the Year
- 2019-2020: Chef Hat Awards Three Hats Restaurant
tattoo
He has a tattoo on his right arm.
Jock Zonfrillo arm tattoo
die
He died on April 30, 2023, in Melbourne, Australia. According to reports, the cause of his death has not yet been determined. After his death, his family took to social media to talk about him and said:
With completely broken hearts and not knowing how we would get through life without him, we are devastated to share that Jock passed away yesterday. For those of you who crossed paths with him, were his companions, or were lucky enough to be part of his family, please keep this proud Scotsman in your thoughts when you drink a glass of whiskey. There are so many words to describe him, so many stories to tell, but at this time we are at a loss for words. For those of you who crossed paths with him, were his companions, or were lucky enough to be part of his family, please keep this proud Scotsman in your thoughts when you drink a glass of whiskey. We ask that you allow us to grieve privately as we find a way to get through this and find space on the other side to celebrate our irreplaceable husband, father, brother, son and friend. “
Facts/Trivia
- He follows a non-vegetarian diet.
Jock Zonfrilo’s Facebook post about his eating habits
- After returning to Australia, he began cooking using native Australian ingredients. In an interview, he spoke about this and said:
At the end of the day, everything I want to do is done with good intentions and I do it in consultation with the indigenous people of the country and being asked by them, they are my check-in point, they are my advisors so I know that I Being on a path that I feel good about. I’ve spent nearly two decades trying to bring some recognition to the conversation about indigenous cultures, people, and food through food. “
- His Orana restaurant was named Australia’s 2018 Restaurant of the Year by Gourmet Traveler magazine in August 2017.
- In July 2021, she was seen wearing worry beads on MasterChef. Many of his fans are interested in what he carries. He later sold these handmade skull-and-skull bracelets under the Caim brand, selling them for up to $500 each. In an interview, he spoke about this and said:
Caim is Scottish Gaelic, pronounced kyem. It’s not religious – it’s an invisible circle of protection that you draw with your hands around your body to remind you that you are safe and loved even in the darkest of times. I have a lot of different types of worry beads, basically I worry when I feel anxious or a little stressed. So I would go through them quickly…the more anxious I was, the faster I would do it. “
- In an interview, he said cooking helped him escape his drug addiction. He added in the interview,
I always say, “Without food, I would be dead.” When you’re an addict, there’s nothing more appealing than taking drugs. Luckily for me, I got away with it when it came to cooking. “
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education