WHO’S got the hottest plate in town?
The beauty of Mandurah’s waterfront location is dished up on Channel Nine’s new reality show The Hotplate, with locals Liam and Conrad competing for $100,000 with their restaurant Duck Duck Moose.
The latest culinary show sees the Mandurah Terrace eatery go fork to fork against five other Australian restaurants, with teams travelling the country with British food critic Tom Parker Bowles and Melbourne restaurateur Scott Pickett, to score each of the restaurants.
And all of this was going on right under Mandurah’s nose, with filming done three to four months ago.
“It was so hard to keep everything a secret while running two businesses,” Conrad said.
“It was hard to keep having to disappear and keep it under wraps.
“[But] we wanted to showcase Mandurah and the amount of natural beauty there is here.
“We both had a dream for seven or eight years now to have a licensed venue on the waterfront.
“Even when we had Lazy Janes in Falcon we still had that dream, we were just patiently waiting for this spot to open up.”
And the local couple said Mandurah definitely put on a show for the judges, when filming came to town a few months ago.
The sun was shining, the dolphins were out and Parker Bowles, Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall’s son, was in awe.
“He said: ‘Keep the French Riviera; this is the place to be’,” Conrad said.
“He was in awe.”
Of course, reality television has been a double-edged sword for Mandurah contestants in the past, with Big Brother’s Lawson Reeves and My Kitchen Rules’ Chloe James both experiencing backlash during their five minutes of fame.
But the Mandurah couple are not worried what people think, with Conrad saying it’s “just water off a duck’s back”.
“We never pretended to be anything we weren’t,” he said. “We’re both fearless in business and in life.
“What we’re trying to achieve here in Mandurah, this show is just going to speed that up.”
“We were both really ruthless in how we applied ourselves,” Liam said. “We were very ‘WA’.
“Each pair of contestants all shared a commonality; we’re all in hospitality and are all owner operators.
“When you’ve got that much in common you can all tell stories over the dinner table and get along, even though we may not all agree.”
That’s what makes the show ‘real’, according the couple, as The Hotplate, doesn’t gloss over the hospitality industry.
It’s peer-judged by people who aren’t trying to make a name in the industry.
“This program will show what the industry is all about,” Conrad said.
“It’s not easy; it’s hard work.
“I think Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules can put the rose-coloured glasses on a bit.”
“It’s about real people in the real environment,” Liam said.
“Whether you’re cooking for eight people or a 120 people, it’s difficult.
“I think I put it well in one of the episodes; this isn’t about food dreams, it’s about our food realities.
“And it pays off – I know I can’t watch one more accountant talk about his food dreams.”
