MasterChef's Khanh Ong announces major career move: 'Lifelong dream'

He’s appeared on two seasons of MasterChef, competed on Australian Survivor and released his own cookbook, and now Khanh Ong has revealed his next exciting career venture.

The popular TV personality is hosting his very first cooking series titled Khanh Ong’s Wild Food on SBS Food where he travels around Australia and takes viewers on “a high-energy culinary adventure”.

Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle about the project, Khanh reveals that having his own cooking show was his “end goal” when he first entered the culinary world.

“I'm over the moon about this, I cannot be happier,” he gushes. “This was something that I've wanted to do since my first season of MasterChef.

“I wanted to do a cooking show that had travel incorporated into it where I could learn about new ingredients and culture and people, and this is kind of like an amalgamation of all those things so it's super exciting.”

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Khanh describes the show as the perfect representation of himself and everything he loves in life, combining “adventure, cooking, and a tiny bit of glamour”.

“I’ve had a lot of opportunities over the last five or six years to do a lot of different cooking shows and my management and I basically said no, we're going to hold out because we have an idea of what I want to do and the show that I want to make that feels really authentic to me,” he shares.

“And Survivor actually really helped, because I think a lot of people were like, ‘Oh, he can be outdoors, he can do all those things, he likes to get gritty, and he's not too much of a glambot’. I'm happy to get my hands dirty and I'm happy to do things out of my comfort zone.”

'A lifelong dream'

When the opportunity finally came for him to host the cooking show he’s always envisioned, Khanh admits it was “really nerve-wracking”.

“I did get really quite stressed about it because this now feels really special to me,” he says. “It's really personal for me and I want Australia to see it and enjoy it.

“I don't want them to just look at it and be like, ‘Oh it's another cooking show’. There's so much more that goes into this. It talks about culture and heritage, and it's a lifelong dream.”

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Khanh, who was born in an Indonesian refugee camp and moved to Australia at two years old, adds that he’s grateful a person like himself was given the opportunity to be at the forefront of a show like this.

“I basically grew up not really seeing someone like myself out there doing anything like this,” he remarks. “We had glimpses of representation in Australian media, but nothing to this extent where I'm literally hosting my own show.

“This show is so fun. It's a representation of Australia how I know it, a melting pot of different cultures and cuisines, and I got to meet such amazing people.”

Khanh Ong’s Wild Food airs on Sundays on SBS Food from April 30 at 8:30pm.

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