Deena Naidoo, the affable 45-year-old IT specialist from Durban, has won the title of South Africa’s first MasterChef, beating 30-year-old Sue-Ann Allen in the final.
In the nail-biting finalé to M-Net’s first season of MasterChef SA on Tuesday, 24 July, Naidoo battled it out for the top prize against Woodstock lighting designer Sue-Ann Allen in a grueling three-part cook-off.
At the start of the episode Naidoo and Allen were flown to Johannesburg in the lap of luxury for a night in the glamorous Presidential Suite of the Palazzo Hotel at MonteCasino. “This place is obviously made for rock stars,” Allen swooned, before the two finalists were whisked off for the dinner of a lifetime at the MondoVino restaurant at Tsogo Sun’s SunSquare, which forms part of the winner’s prize package, where a three-course dinner was cooked especially for them by the MasterChef SA judges, Pete Goffe-Wood, Benny Masekwameng and Andrew Atkinson.
As South Africa’s first-ever MasterChef, Naidoo received the biggest prize package in South African television history.
The R8-million prize includes:
– R250 000 from Robertsons
– A Hyundai Elantra 1.6 GLS
– A seven-day culinary experience in Italy and an Italian cookery course, courtesy of Woolworths
– A year’s supply of Nederburg Winemaster’s Reserve wines and a customised sommelier course and one-on-one masterclasses with Nederburg’s cellarmaster
– Tsogo Sun restaurant, the MondoVino, at Tsogo Sun’s SunSquare Montecasino, for a period of two years.
