When Will MasterChef Return?

7 months ago

Here's what we know so far

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New episodes of MasterChef last aired in spring 2024, a bumper edition celebrating 20 years of the British cooking competition as we know it. Here’s what we know about its return in 2025.

When Will MasterChef Return?

MasterChef is expected to return in spring 2025, following the 20-year trend set by previous seasons – though investigations into the conduct of co-presenter Gregg Wallace have thrown this off course.

At present, the pre-filmed MasterChef: The Professionals is airing its 17th series on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings on BBC One. The final is scheduled to air on Thursday 12 December at 9pm. However, the BBC is under mounting pressure to take the cooking show off air: on Radio 4’s Today show this morning, MP Rupa Huq called for the broadcaster to ‘[pause]’ airing the series ‘while this investigation takes its course’.

MasterChef judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace

MasterChef celebrated 20 series in April. (© BBC/Shine TV)

Applications for MasterChef series 21 opened in April 2024, and filming usually takes place at the end of the year. Hence the headlines about Wallace ‘stepping aside’: filming for MasterChef 2025 was underway. There’s no clarity from the BBC or the production company behind MasterChef, Banijay UK, on how far they got through filming, though. That said, Banijay has confirmed Wallace is contracted on a series by series basis, and he will not be part of the series while investigations continue.

Meanwhile, the BBC told The Independent: ‘Right now the plan is, if it’s already been recorded, it will go out.’ This means MasterChef: The Professionals will continue to air, but the BBC has since done a 180 and pulled its two Christmas special episodes. ‘As we have said, MasterChef is an amazing competition which is life-changing for the chefs taking part and the current series of MasterChef: The Professionals is continuing as planned,’ a spokesperson shared. ‘The celebrity Christmas specials are obviously a different type of show and in the current circumstances we have decided not to broadcast them.’

In response to allegations made against him, Wallace has said: ‘I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age, just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right.’ His co-host John Torode has not commented.

Who Will Replace Gregg Wallace?

BBC bosses are reportedly eyeing up British actress and John Torode’s wife Lisa Faulkner to present MasterChef in the future if Gregg Wallace officially departs. Faulkner competed on Celebrity MasterChef in 2015, where she met Torode; the couple married in 2019 and have presented John and Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen together since 2019 and an Aussie travelogue, John & Lisa’s Food Trip Down Under, which aired earlier this year on ITV.