Grace Dent: ‘Part-Time’ Vegan Food Critic Replaces Gregg Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef

Grace Dent, the Guardian food critic who describes herself as mostly vegan, will replace Gregg Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef UK.

MasterChef is getting its first vegan judge – almost.

Food critic Grace Dent is replacing long-time presenter Gregg Wallace, who stepped away from the role after facing multiple allegations of misconduct, which he denies.

Dent, who reviews restaurants for the Guardian and hosts its award-winning Comfort Eating podcast, has described herself as “mainly vegan” since the early 2010s (although has suggested that she doesn’t like to label herself as “flexitarian”). And last year, she appeared in a TV commercial for plant-based meat leader THIS.

She is no stranger to the cooking show, having appeared on a range as a guest on MasterChef, and participating as a contestant in MasterChef: Battle Of The Critics 2023. Last year, she was also a participant in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.

“I’m so excited that I can’t eat, which is severely detrimental to a restaurant critic. I feel very lucky to be stepping in for the next Celebrity MasterChef,” said Grace.

The 51-year-old will join fellow judge John Torode, who has been hosting MasterChef’s flagship show and its Celebrity spinoff with Wallace for the best part of 20 years.

“I have loved working with Grace on MasterChef over the years. She has been an excellent guest, an inspiring critic and also set some incredible challenges. Expertise is what MasterChef is all about, from the contestants to our wonderful production team, to us as judges,” Torode said.

Grace Dent the ‘perfect choice’ for Celebrity MasterChef

Dent wrote for the Evening Standard and the Independent before joining the Guardian in 2017, and is the bestselling author of over 20 books, including Hungry, Comfort Eating and the Diary Of series. She has presented a range of shows across TV and radio too, including the BBC Radio 4 series The Untold and BBC Four’s What We Were Watching.

“I’ve been watching MasterChef since I was a girl sitting with my dad on the sofa. My whole family watches it. It’s all about uncovering and championing talent and to have ended up in this position, is more than a dream to me,” she said.

Kalpna Patel-Knight, head of entertainment at the BBC, called Dent the “perfect choice” to judge Celebrity MasterChef: “Grace is not only an energetic and well-established member of the MasterChef team, but is also a world-renowned food critic, so she will certainly keep the next batch of celebrities on their toes.”

The development follows Wallace’s departure from the show, after a BBC investigation aired sexual allegations from 13 women who worked with him. And last week, the model Penny Lancaster – who is married to singer Rod Stewart and appeared on the 2021 edition of Celebrity MasterChef – said she witnessed and was a victim of Wallace’s bullying and harassment.

Kirsty Wark, former presenter of BBC Newsnight and a contestant in the show’s 2011 season, has alleged that Wallace used “sexualised language” during filming. Lawyers representing Wallace have denied any claims of sexual misconduct.

Torode has called the situation “truly upsetting”, but did not mention the controversy in his comments about Dent’s arrival on the show. “The love of food, the love of MasterChef, and that unquestionable expertise, makes Grace the perfect person to step in alongside me as judge for the forthcoming Celebrity MasterChef series,” he said.

‘I eat like a wild animal’

Signing Dent as a judge carries a level of intrigue for MasterChef. The food critic says she sticks to an “almost vegan” diet, explaining that plants and vegetables form the base of her diet, alongside nuts and seeds.

“I say ‘mainly’ as there are caveats and slip-ups. ‘Plant-based’ is closer. ‘Flexitarian’ is a word people use for me (as well as much ruder things when I appear in their restaurant, I’m sure),” she wrote in a Guardian column in 2019. “But announcing you’re flexitarian is a bit like coming out as bisexual. You won’t get any prizes for picking your team and everyone on all sides will resent you for having your cake and eating it.”

She had been a “militant vegetarian” in the 1980s, before chicken crept into her diet in the 90s. But she grew exasperated at the “cloud-cuckoo-land phrases of modern farming” – think “respectful” nose-to-tail eating or “happy” pigs – that chefs began using.

“The truth is I love animals more than I love most humans,” she wrote. “I merely adore vegetarian food and have always preferred to eat things that didn’t ever have a face.”

In a separate interview with the Guardian, she added: “I eat like a wild animal – apart from the meat. I drive my man mad. His idea of joy is cooking half a cow three different ways. I’m more of an ape; I love vegan food.

And in yet another interview, she said: “In my own time, I eat vegan or vegetarian. I really abhor factory farming and its byproducts so I live a vegan lifestyle as much as I can. If you come to my house you are getting oat milk, vegan cheeses and things like that.

“I am always walking into restaurants and making them paranoid that they are not catering to people of different appetites and I think that I am a force for good in that way.”

Vegan chefs are ‘brave and exciting’

Dent has spoken about the pushback food critics can get for having dietary restrictions. “Whenever I talk about loving vegan food, it starts a backlash. The vegans aren’t happy with me because I’m not fully vegan, and the meat-eaters say I’m trying to destroy the farming industry. Any nuance seems to get lost, she told the Guardian. “It does seem to fascinate people, though, that I’m a food critic who doesn’t love foie gras. Stereotypically, those guys love a kidney, bone marrow, sweetbreads. Not me.”

She had addressed this in her column too: “Eating plant-based makes really no impact on my career as a restaurant critic. I see this as my special skill as a critic, not a hindrance.”

So what can MasterChef viewers expect from a plant-forward judge? Dent has already prophesied this. “When I sit on that table of gargoyles on MasterChef waiting to judge whoever comes through the door, I’m simply not that impressed by another plate of barely dead roe deer avec pommes noisettes all lying in a puddle of Bambi’s blood,” she wrote.

“So when on a recent MasterChef: The Professionals Matt Campbell served Gregg Wallace a raw, vegan cacao delice encased in a Jerusalem artichoke rosti tuile, I knew this was a chef with a certain level of swagger.

“Chefs such as Campbell are brave and exciting to me because to even pepper a menu with the term “vegan” is to bang up against decades of culinary prejudice. This is a word synonymous with worthy, difficult diners and glee-free abstinence.

While it’s unclear if she will replace Wallace on other MasterChef series too, the signs are all there that Grace is about to make a Dent in the franchise.