Young MasterChef winner: ‘My mum screamed when I won’

“I feel very proud and like I learnt a lot from Young MasterChef,” the cooking champ says.

“It’s just such a ‘pinch-me moment’. I feel like I’m dreaming.”

Keziah Whittaker, a 21-year-old law student from Nottingham, has been crowned BBC Three’s first ever Young MasterChef Champion.

Keziah entered the competition alongside 14 other young aspiring chefs and after three heats and a demanding series of culinary challenges, was awarded the trophy by judges Poppy O’Toole and Kerth Gumbs.

Her innovative dishes saw off fierce competition from her fellow finalists, Bobby, a 19-year-old mechanical engineering student from Dunstable, and Jordan, 21, a vegan entrepreneur who lives in Knebworth.

Keziah adds: “I honestly feel blessed. Going into this, I don’t think I had as much confidence - and I’ve come out such a better person. I feel very proud and like I learnt a lot from Young MasterChef.”

The winner adds that she was especially pleased to be able to tell her mum she’d triumphed in the cooking competition.

“We’re obviously mother and daughter but there’s a friendship there as well. Achieving something so big, I feel like it was definitely our win because she put her all into me growing up, so this is something I can give back to her. I honestly feel like it’s a shared effort.

“I knew she was going to be proud. She cried every single challenge that I got through to, so the tears for the final were just crazy. She literally screamed.”

Keziah remembers spending her childhood in the kitchen with her mum, who had her when she was just 16 and who runs a catering and food delivery company.

“I would always be in the kitchen with my mum. She cooked a lot. Sometimes I’d go on catering events with her and I’d pick certain things up.

“But we have different styles of cooking, which is good because I’d get to try her food and she’d get to try mine. We can exchange recipes.

“I like to do fusion cooking so there’s a lot of stuff that I make that she hasn’t really heard of. We definitely bond over food.”

Judges Poppy O’Toole and Kerth Gumbs were impressed by all the dishes created by the finalists.

Crowning the first ever Young MasterChef Champion, Poppy said: “She literally delivers sunshine on a plate, she is a pure spark of joy, and we are going to see some amazing things from her in the future.”

Kerth added: “Keziah cooks from the heart, she just loves to feed people.”

In the final episode, Keziah, alongside finalists Bobby and Jordan, had to wow the judges with two courses - an appetite-whetting starter followed by a showstopper dish that incorporated all their creativity and learning from the competition.

Keziah’s winning menu was a starter of Caribbean shrimp and coconut curry soup, garnished with coriander, lime and chilli served in coconut shells accompanied by a coconut mojito, and her main course was Jamaican spiced sea bass with escovitch vegetables and carrots served three different ways, pureed, roasted in jerk and in a beurre blanc sauce.

Keziah says her finale dish “was definitely the best dish that I did on the show - and probably one of the best dishes that I’ve ever made.”

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She’s also passionate about sharing her cooking on social media, especially TikTok, to teach other young people that cooking can be fun.

“I feel like cooking is very underrated when you’re my age,” she says. “It doesn’t seem important to people.

“It’s just so great that I get to share my passion to show people cooking isn’t just a chore, it can become something really fun as well.”

And the law student is certain food will be a part of her life forever.

“Food is definitely in my future, that’s what I’m 100% sure of right now. Anything food related I’m running towards it, I’m not even walking.”

The whole series of Young MasterChef is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.

Originally published 24 January 2023.