Poppy O'Toole: 'I'm literally a Young MasterChef judge - it doesn't feel very real'

Professional chef and TikTok star Poppy O'Toole, also known to her fans as Poppy Cooks, is very passionate about judging the debut series of BBC Three’s Young MasterChef.

The ten-part competition series, airing on Monday 2 January, is looking for the best up-and-coming food talent in the UK aged between 18 and 25. And Poppy will be joined by chef Kerth Gumbs, who’s worked in some of the world’s best restaurants.

“This is something new and something fresh,” he says. “It's youthful. It's vibrant. It has a certain level of, I would say, zestiness to it.”

The essential format is the same as the long-running cooking series and its spin-offs such as Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals, Poppy says, but with a few twists aimed at younger cooks.

“People are going to be very familiar with the kitchen but [for this series] it's been kitted out in all new colours, all neon, all great.

“But the challenges are slightly different. They're slightly more pushed towards what the younger generation see in food: so that’s social media and street food and all these different tasks and trials for them to get into, which is really fun.”

‘The Young MasterChef cooks brought their own creative twists’

Both Poppy and Kerth agree that working with younger, aspiring chefs was one of the most rewarding parts of being involved with the show.

“What I'm most looking forward to is people being able to see the talent that comes through the MasterChef doors,” Birmingham chef Poppy says.

“Honestly, the first time we got to see all of the cooks, we were kind of blown away at the talent. It was so amazing to see people's minds work in different ways and how they approach food.”

Poppy points out that young people in this age group can apply to take part in the usual MasterChef but she says this series is designed to give young chefs “confidence” and a “safe space” because “it's very, very daunting walking into the MasterChef kitchen”.

She adds: “We obviously saw struggles through the challenges and then we would be able to see how they overcome it and take on what they'd learn. It was lovely to see confidence building in the young chefs. You could literally see the cooks learning every day.”

Kerth says it was intriguing to see how the young contestants were “influenced by the nowaday trends and what they're seeing from different cultures” and how they brought that to their own cooking. “They brought their own creative twists and mixes to everything.”

‘These are the potato people’

Poppy started her career with professional training and years of working in restaurants. But as a result of the pandemic in 2020, she found herself out of work.

It was then that she devoted more time to social media - and she soon found a legion of fans on the social media platform TikTok.

Her easy-to-follow recipe tutorials have won her 2.8 million followers and last year she wrote her debut cookbook.

“I am still kind of catching up with what has happened in the past couple of years,” she says. “I'm very, very grateful for it.

“It's bizarre because I thought for the rest of my life I'd be in the back of the kitchen and just working towards maybe having a restaurant one day. Whereas now I'm literally a Young MasterChef judge. It doesn't feel very real.”

In particular, Poppy is well-known for her love of potatoes. She’s the self-styled “Potato Queen” and she dominates the world of “#potatotiktok” on the video platform.

“I don't think I can pinpoint when I started loving potatoes. I've always been a big fan, I mean, who doesn't love a chip?

“My first video to ever get one million views [was] with these crispy cubes of potato. And then I realised, ‘Well, everybody loves it.’

“It was a hallelujah moment. It was like I’d found my people. These are the potato people. And I'm going to show them all the potato recipes I can ever think of.”

‘Oh! You’re the head chef?’

Kerth, originally from the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean, was the London and South East champion on BBC Two’s Great British Menu in 2020.

He pursued a career in top London restaurants Tom Aikens, Texture and Ormer Mayfair - and also worked for years in Singapore, where he discovered that the “the zing and sweetness and acidity” of the flavour profiles were similar to those in Caribbean cuisine.

His culinary experiences led him to experiment with some classic Caribbean dishes such as Johnnycake, a cornmeal flatbread which he pairs with Scotch bonnet mayo, and conkie dumplings, that he likes to infuse with coconut, ginger and other spices.

He even got the approval of his mum and aunt who were at first sceptical about him “blaspheming” against the traditional recipes, he laughs.

Kerth says he enjoys mixing elements from different food cultures, giving recipes a modern interpretation and breaking stereotypes.

There have been times in his career when people have made assumptions about him being a black chef with dreadlocks and coming from the Caribbean, he adds.

He remembers facing stares of curiosity from diners who’ve asked to thank the chef in his restaurants. “And then I come out and they’re like, ‘Oh! You’re the head chef?’” he says, chuckling.

‘Always have an opinion - never sit on the fence’

“I think one of the best tips that we had was from Gregg Wallace,” Poppy explains. “He said, ‘Always have an opinion. Like it, or don't like it. Never sit on the fence. That isn't any good for anybody.’

“Being able to have that knowledge from the legend Gregg Wallace was incredible and really, really useful.”

Kerth adds that it was “rewarding and humbling” to see the young people get feedback from the guest judges - who included “top calibre chefs at the top of the game” from across the UK, such as Big Has, James Cochran, and Terri Mercieca.

And both Poppy and Kerth agree their own professional kitchen backgrounds helped guide them in their judging - but with at least one key exception.

“Working professionally in kitchens, you are constantly having to judge the food that you're serving,” Poppy says. “Is that good enough? Do I change the seasoning?

“So when you're getting food brought to you, you're able to translate what you've learned from being in the kitchen.

“[But] we couldn't judge the Young MasterChefs’ food on how we’d get judged at work, because there'd be a few bleeps, I imagine,” she laughs.

Watch Young MasterChef on BBC Three on Monday 2 January at 8pm and on BBC iPlayer.