Having spent years working in hospitality, Melbourne mates Nick and Christian have been hanging out to get to Kitchen HQ, and in the final episode of My Kitchen Rules, they do.
“It’s a world that we’re familiar with,” Nick, 36, tells TV WEEK. “It felt like we had a home-turf advantage.”
“Everyone grew up watching Nigella cook.”
(Image: Supplied)And of course, there’s the thrill of Nigella Lawson joining the show as a judge. Christian, 34, admits he started “nervously giggling” when Nigella stood next to him.
“She just has this amazing ethereal quality,” he says. “Everyone grew up watching Nigella cook.”
Nick is also a big fan of the UK home-cooking queen, but was more excited about being reunited with one of his fellow MKR competitors.
“It was a pinch-me moment.”
(Image: Supplied)“Everyone knows Nigella is beautiful, and I think the same,” he says, “but a bonus of getting to Kitchen HQ was definitely being able to see Rach again.”
Fellow contestant Rach, whose teammate is her friend Tommy, made it clear early in the competition that she was there to cook, not date. But with filming on MKR now finished, Nick thinks something could happen.
“There’s still hope!” he says.
Nick and Christian have been mates for 12 years, having met while studying drama. Back then, they both wanted to be actors – and Christian even scored a two-episode role as a character called Buzz in comedy drama House Husbands, which ran on the Nine Network from 2012 to 2017.
“He was a shady underground poker player who was friends with Hugh Sheridan’s character [Nick Gazecki],” Christian remembers. “It was a pinch-me moment when I was standing there with Hugh Sheridan and Rhys Muldoon [who played Mark Oliver].”
Now, Nick and Christian’s dreams revolve around cooking rather than acting. They say they’d love to run a restaurant together one day.
“The next step is to open up our own place and invite Australia in,” Nick says.
