Barry Zonfrillo, who was born in Glasgow in 1976, started working in kitchens at the age of 13 and started his apprenticeship at the Turnberry Hotel at 15, making him one of the hotel’s youngest-ever apprentices.
When he was 17 years old, he began working for famed British chef Marco Pierre White. In his 2021 autobiography Last Shot, Zonfrillo made clear that he was homeless and dependent on heroin at the time.
He was appointed head chef of the Tresanton Hotel in Cornwall when he was just 22 years old.
Zonfrillo was appointed in 2000 to be the head chef at Sydney’s Forty One, but he was fired in 2002 after deliberately lighting a trainee’s clothes on fire.
The apprentice sued Zonfrillo in 2007 and won a $75,000 damage award. Zonfrillo filed for bankruptcy in the same year. He subsequently opened a variety of restaurants in Adelaide, including Restaurant Orana, Street ADL, Bistro Blackwood, and Nonna Mallozzi.
In 2018 and 2019, respectively, the Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller magazines selected Restaurant Orana Australia’s Restaurant of the Year. It closed in March of that year despite winning three hats in 2019 and 2020.
As a judge on MasterChef Australia in 2019, Zonfrillo replaced the show’s original hosts, Matt Preston, George Calombaris, and Gary Mehigan. However, some of the stories he related in his memoir drew vehement criticism.
Is Lauren Zonfrillo related to Jock Zonfrillo?
Lauren Zonfrillo is Jock Zonfrillo’s wife. On the first day of the new year, Jock wed his wife. They have a six-year-old son named Alfie and a two-year-old daughter named Isla.
Ava and Sophia, Jock’s teenage daughters from his first two marriages, are also left behind.
Jock was the first to acknowledge that his prior drug use, together with the alone hours and strong ethos of the hotel industry, had a substantial negative impact on his personal relationships, even if he eventually fell in love with Lauren.
How is Jock Zonfrillo related to Jimmy Barnes?
Barnes, a close friend of Zonfrillo who also shared Scottish heritage, posted a picture of the two men wearing traditional Scottish kilts on Twitter and Instagram to express his sorrow.