Jock Zonfrillo facts for kids
Zonfrillo in August 2017
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| Born | Barry Zonfrillo 4 August 1976 Glasgow, Scotland |
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| Died | 30 April 2023 (aged 46) Melbourne, Australia |
| Cooking style | French, Italian, Scottish |
| Spouse | Lauren Fried |
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Previous restaurant(s)
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Television show(s)
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Award(s) won
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| Official website | |
| https://jockzonfrillo.com | |
Jock Zonfrillo (born Barry Zonfrillo; 4 August 1976 – 30 April 2023) was a Scottish chef, television presenter, and restaurateur based in Melbourne, Australia. He was the founder of The Orana Foundation and a judge on MasterChef Australia.
Contents
Career
Rise to head chef
Zonfrillo started working in kitchens at the age of 12 as a part-time dishwasher at the restaurant in which his older sister was waitressing. He started cooking at the restaurant three weeks later when one of the chefs had a motorbike accident. Zonfrillo left school at age 15 and started an apprenticeship in the kitchens of The Turnberry Hotel, after which he worked at the one-Michelin-starred Arkle Restaurant in Chester. Zonfrillo was fired from Arkle for failing to run the kitchen in an orderly manner.
Zonfrillo then worked for Marco Pierre White before travelling to Australia for 12 months to work at Restaurant 41 in Sydney. On returning to the UK, Zonfrillo was appointed to his first head chef position, at age 22, at The Tresanton Hotel in Cornwall.
Zonfrillo returned to Australia in 2000, becoming head chef of Restaurant 41. In 2002, Zonfrillo set fire to the pants of Martin Krammer, an apprentice chef in his kitchen, for working too slowly. Krammer suffered burns to his hand and Zonfrillo was fired from Restaurant 41 after the incident. Krammer sued Zonfrillo and was awarded damages in excess of $75,000 in 2007. In May 2007, Zonfrillo was declared bankrupt after a creditor's petition from Krammer was successful in the Federal Magistrates Court. According to Krammer, "He [Zonfrillo] never paid me a cent".
In 2011, Zonfrillo was named head chef at Penfolds Magill Estate Restaurant in South Australia but left after 18 months.
Restaurants
In November 2013, he opened Restaurant Orana and Street ADL in Adelaide, replacing Street ADL with Bistro Blackwood in September 2017. In August 2017, Restaurant Orana was named Australia's 2018 Restaurant of the Year by Gourmet Traveller magazine; the same year Zonfrillo was named Australia's 2018 Hottest Chef in The Australian. In October 2018, Orana was named Australia's 2019 Restaurant of the Year by The Good Food Guide, as well as being a three hatted restaurant in the 2019 and 2020 Chef Hat Awards.
Zonfrillo opened Nonna Mallozzi in December 2018. He closed it in July 2019 after posting losses exceeding $140,000 in the time it was open. In late 2019, Bistro Blackwood closed, followed by Orana in March 2020. On 5 October 2020, the companies which operated the restaurants entered into voluntary administration, with substantial unpaid debts, amounting to approximately $3.2 million. A preliminary report filed by the administrators with ASIC in October 2020, recorded that initial investigations were being undertaken into whether the restaurant companies were trading while insolvent, if there had been unfair preferences or potential breaches of director duties, and concerning related party loans. Zonfrillo also had to sell his family home in the Adelaide Hills after the closure of Orana.
The Orana Foundation
In 2016, Zonfrillo started The Orana Foundation, to preserve historical cooking techniques and ingredients of Indigenous Australians. The Orana Foundation was awarded The Good Food Guide Food for Good Award in October 2017. One of the foundation's projects was a database of 1,443 Aboriginal food plants created in partnership with the University of Adelaide. Launched in September 2020, the database provided information about the plants' nutritional profile, taste, flavour, and optimal methods of preparation and cooking.
Questions were raised by The Australian in August 2020 regarding Zonfrillo's management of the foundation. Zonfrillo launched defamation proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the newspaper. The Australian's publisher Nationwide News settled the court case. An apology was printed in The Australian newspaper on 17 December 2020 and published on their website.
MasterChef Australia
In October 2019, Zonfrillo was announced as one of the new judges for MasterChef Australia, alongside Melissa Leong and Andy Allen.
In July 2020, Zonfrillo was announced as one of the judges for Junior MasterChef Australia in 2020.
Worry beads
In July 2021, Zonfrillo began selling "worry beads" bracelets with skulls on them for up to $500 each, under the brand Caim.
Memoir
On 28 July 2021, Simon & Schuster published Zonfrillo's memoir, Last Shot. A subsequent feature in The Sydney Morning Herald questioned his stories, notably his claims of having visited "hundreds of Indigenous communities". Marco Pierre White, referred to as a father figure in the book, stated that "almost everything he has written about me is untrue". Simon & Schuster replied that the book was "a historical account written from the personal knowledge of the subject writing it."
Personal life
Zonfrillo was born in Glasgow, Scotland and raised in Ayr. His father, Ivan, was a barber and his mother, Sarah, was a hairdresser. His mother's family is Scottish from Dalmellington, Ayrshire, while his father is from Scauri, Italy. He had an older sister. Zonfrillo attended Belmont Academy in Ayr.
On 1 January 2017, Zonfrillo married his third wife, Lauren Fried. The couple met on Twitter in October 2014. In February 2018, Fried and Zonfrillo had a son who was born two months premature and weighed only 1.2 kgs. Fried and Zonfrillo had a daughter in October 2020. Zonfrillo had two other daughters from his two previous marriages.
After the closure of his restaurants, Zonfrillo and his family relocated to Melbourne around March 2020. Prior to his death, the family resided in Carlton.
Death
Zonfrillo died in Melbourne, Australia on 30 April 2023, at the age of 46. There was no immediate confirmation of his cause of death, but the police were not treating the death as suspicious and are preparing a report for the coroner.
Recognitions
- 1993 Young Scottish Chef of the Year – The Federation of Chefs Scotland
- 2014 South Australian Best New Restaurant and South Australian Restaurant of the Year – The Advertiser Food Awards
- 2015 South Australian Restaurant of the Year – The Advertiser Food Awards
- 2015 Chef of The Year – Restaurant & Catering Awards
- 2015 and 2016 Australia's Hot 50 Restaurants – The Australian
- 2017 Hottest Chef & Hottest South Australian Restaurant – The Australian
- 2017 Food for Good Award – The Good Food Guide
- 2018 Australian Restaurant of the Year – Gourmet Traveller magazine
- 2018 Australia's Hottest Chef – The Australian
- 2018 Australian Food for Good Award – The Good Food Guide
- 2018 Basque Culinary World Prize – Basque Culinary Center
- 2019 Australian Restaurant of the Year – The Good Food Guide.
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
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| 2014 | MasterChef Australia | Guest chef | Series 6 |
| Nomad Chef | Host | Filmed in 10 countries across the world and aired in over 180. | |
| 2015 | Restaurant Revolution | For Seven Network in Australia. | |
| 2016–2017 | Chef Exchange | First and second season for Qingdao TV (QTV) in China and South Australia. | |
| 2018 | MasterChef Australia | Guest chef | Series 10 |
| 2019 | MasterChef Australia | Series 11 | |
| 2020 | MasterChef Australia | Judge | Series 12 |
| Junior MasterChef Australia | Series 3 | ||
| 2021 | MasterChef Australia | Series 13 | |
| 2022 | MasterChef Australia | Series 14 | |
| 2023 | MasterChef Australia | Series 15 |
