The BBC has confirmed MasterChef will be helmed by Grace Dent and Anna Haugh in a major shake-up.
The two chefs, who have a history of guest-starring on the show, will take over the reins from fired presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
Their removal followed an independent review that upheld 45 out of 83 allegations of misconduct against Wallace and substantiated the use of racial language by Torode in an incident he doesn’t recall.
After the BBC controversially decided to air an edited version of the pre-recorded season, still featuring both ex-presenters (and removing two of the contestants at their request), fans had been waiting to see who would be the new faces of the show.
Saturday Kitchen star Matt Tebbutt is Wallace’s confirmed replacement for The Professionals spin-off, while the main amateur series is getting its first all-female presenting duo.
Here’s everything you need to know about Haugh, who also appears in the final episodes of the latest season of the cooking reality show before taking over full-time.
Who is Anna Haugh?
The Irish chef, 44, is from Tallaght in Dublin and has been cooking professionally for 20 years.
Off-screen, she cut her teeth as a cook at Derry Clarke’s restaurant L’Ecrivain under head pastry chef Mary Knox, and her experience was honed working alongside chefs such as Philip Howard, Shane Osborne, and Gordon Ramsay in London.
‘I do not think I chose this job: it chose me. I walked into an empty kitchen, a sea of stainless steel, 22 years ago, and something clicked. I felt like I belonged,’ she told The Irish Times about what led her down this career path.
In 2019, her dream culminated in opening her first Irish fine-dining restaurant, Myrtle Restaurant, which she co-owns with her partner Richard Elwell.
The couple shares a step-son, Henry, and another son, Oisín, who was born in August 2021 after seven years of IVF.
‘Oisín is strong and hungry. We are madly in love with him,’ she said in a birth announcement post at the time.
She wrote in the Irish Times that she felt she was always ‘destined to become a mother’ and that she is now finding the happy balance of working while raising her family.
Haugh continued: ‘I knew having a child and being a head chef and restaurant owner was always going to be tricky, so I trained my team to be able to do what is necessary if I am not at the restaurant.’
The TV chef has never been shy about discussing the discrimination she has faced as a woman.
When working as head pastry chef with Gualtiero Marchesi at the Lotti Hotel in the Place Vendôme, which boasts one Michelin star, she recalled one encounter with some of the guys who worked there for The Times.
‘They told me this was as senior as I’d ever get as a female chef, so I told them to shove it up their arse. That probably wasn’t my best decision,’ she shared.
Since then, she has jumped from renowned restaurant to renowned restaurant, including Pied à Terre, Square in Mayfair, the Savoy, and Bob Bob Richard, before opening the doors on her own endeavour.
As is the natural next step for prominent chefs, she published her cookbook, Cooking with Anna, in May 2024, which features 85 recipes.
What has she appeared in before?
Alongside her successful career behind the scenes, Haugh has also been a regular face on our screens.
In 2017, she joined Michael Buerk to present a BBC series about historic royal-themed food. A few years later, she featured on Ready, Steady, Cook, which was hosted by Rylan Clark, in which ‘chefs’ battle it out against the clock’.
She’s appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and even joined as a guest judge on MasterChef: The Professionals since 2022.
In the past year, she has landed two major gigs, the first of which was hosting her own 15-part series on the BBC called Anna Haugh’s Big Irish Food Tour.
‘Irish food is my passion, and it’s a passion that took me from Dublin to London to pursue my dreams. In this series, I am returning home to rediscover what is incredible and unique about Irish food,’ she said at the time.
Second, she stepped in as a replacement for Wallace in the final episodes of MasterChef recorded after the allegations came out against him.
That position has now turned into a full-time job as she comes on board to host the new seasons alongside fellow chef Grace Dent.
What has she said about joining MasterChef?
After the news was confirmed, she said: ‘I’m delighted to be back on MasterChef and judging alongside the wonderful Grace Dent, whose writing and wit I’ve admired for years.
‘MasterChef has long inspired and resonated with cooks in home kitchens and, of course, in my industry. I can’t wait to get into the studio for what will be a great competition.’
It has been a cause of great celebration with many fans sharing their joy at Haugh gracing their screens for future MasterChef episodes.
Irish TV presenter Angela Scanlon said it was ‘epic scenes’ while former Bake Off contestant Raul shared he ‘loved both of them so much’.
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