To come straight to the point, Manu Fieldel and Colin Fassnidge are the celebrity chef judges on My Kitchen Rules New Zealand. Their friendship has been a rocky road, but both are good friends.
Colin Fassnidge and Manu Fieldel are the hosts and judges of the cooking competition.
Manu also likes to be the judge on the show, and he believes being a judge on the show is as fun as it looks. While going to the interview at Central Bakehouse, Auckland, Colin and Manu were in the middle of the mega press day.
They have done more than ten interviews for various podcasts, newspapers, and magazines for the upcoming season on the press day. All this is for a season that was shot years ago.
They’re here to shoot the next season, and by the looks of it, nothing is going to slow down, and both of them are telling me to get ready for the upcoming projects.
Four things About the two judges
Both the judges have been in the cooking space for a while, and both of them have the character and charisma that is required for the show.
They like to eat a lot
On a normal day of the shoot, Manu and Colin don’t enjoy the contestant’s meals till 7 pm. Both of them get a quick bite before the filming begins. They even recall a kebab on their way to film. Colin admits to getting indulged with the catering of crew members, and he adds that New Zealand has the best-fed crew.
Both of them have an incredible chemistry
This season is the first time Colin will host in Aotearoa. His first appearance was in season 4 as a judge on blind-tasting panels. But after Pete Evans left the show in 2019, he joined the full-time show as a co-host and judge.
Their conversations are funny, and their bond looks comfortable on and off-screen. When you watch the episodes, you will see that the show has found a perfect pairing with Colin and Manu.
While talking about their way of judging, Colin says your facial expressions are enough to express your feelings. But Manu has a different style of judge.
Both of them are modest
For two top-of-the-line judges whose job is to judge, you might think they are a bit judge. But on the contrary, Colin and Manu are very modest. Manu says that from the day he started as a judge, he has become disillusioned with the world of catering and dining.
He says it is annoying to spend so much money on something that it only looks good. He added that if a zipper from a handbag breaks, you buy a new handbag. But if you own a Louis Vuitton handbag and its zipper broke, it’s going to stay like that.
Most of their conversations are chill, but waiting too long for their meal is a pet peeve. For lunch, they prefer sausage rolls. Colin likes classic beef, and Manu chooses pork.
The tension slowly rises as the food takes slightly longer to prepare. Twenty-five minutes after ordering, Colin finally addresses the elephant in the room. How long will it take to prepare a sausage roll? Manu also adds by saying it is already lunchtime.
They both are veterans of reality TV
This is not the first time both of them are in front of cameras. Manu has not seen TV much, but in 2011, he won Dancing With the Stars Australia. Of course, he watched his final performance.
In 2020, he also did extension army training for shooting SAS Australia. He said that he loved all that, but those days are behind him.
On the other hand, Colin likes reality TV space a lot. He made it to the finals of I’m A Celebrity…. Get Me Out Of Here, finals in 2021. He says that he is convinced to do a season of Big Brother. Be says he lives to wind up people and show people that he is a di#@#d, and he will absolutely love it.
