The New Cast Of ‘My Kitchen Rules’, Ranked From Least To Most Objectionable

With the Australian Open now behind us, the nation last night turned excitedly to another of its favourite sporting pastimes: watching ordinary people cook meals for strangers until they cry. My Kitchen Rules is back.

Once again the blockbuster reality show, in which home cooks weigh the promise of their culinary talent against their contractual obligation to let Pete Evans in their home, is facing off against Channel Ten’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in the ratings wars. But this year they have some particularly tough competition. On Sunday night I’m A Celebrity dropped a particularly novel lineup — literally, they threw them out of a plane — including 2004 Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea, Dirty Street Pie from The Bachelor and Shane Warne. And, after producers made a point to repeatedly splice footage of the group together with clips of South African wildlife, millions are bound to tune in with the faint hope at least one member of the cast will be lightly mauled by a cheetah.

Though the full group of contestants is yet to be properly introduced, last night’s season premiere gave us our first look at MKR‘s response. Here’s the six teams revealed so far, ranked in increasing order of how many mean tweets they’ll receive over the coming months.

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Anna and Jordan – SA

Anna and Jordan are the only mother and son team in the group so far and if you say a single bad word about them I will destroy you and everyone you love. Anna co-runs a post office with her husband of 33 years. Jordan is one half of the most genetically gifted set of twins on the planet. They enjoy making cannolis together, bickering about strawberries in supermarkets, and aggressively force-feeding their family. It’s all so cute I immediately forgave Jordan for yelling “explanation points” instead of “exclamation” in his first bit to camera.

Jordan is also the show’s first openly gay contestant — a fact he’s very proud of. Though nothing was mentioned about his sexuality in the first episode, the 22-year-old recently appeared in The West Australian wearing a “Legalize Love” shirt and talked about how honoured he is to represent the gay community. “I hope I can be a role model,” he said, mere moments before destroying everyone’s hearts and saying he has a boyfriend of nine months called Giles.

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Mitch and Laura – VIC

The youngest contestants in MKR history, siblings Mitch and Laura are 21 and 18 respectively and have presumably spent every one of those years talking about their hair. Mitch is studying to be a paramedic, he tells the group. Laura says she’s learning four languages and doing a course about “international cultural literacy” or something similarly intimidating. “ISN’T IT FUNNY HOW YOU BOTH LOOK LIKE THE PADDLE POP LION. HAAAAA, GENETICS,” everyone replies.

Aside from having very impressive fields of study and the ability to expel dead skin cells from their scalps, Mitch and Laura seem like extraordinarily talented cooks for their age. They’re into sustainable eating and combat food waste with a “nose-to-tail” philosophy. And, if we didn’t already get that from the shots of them explaining it and cooking pig trotters, it was enforced by clips of Laura waving mushrooms in her brother’s face in a field, Mitch flipping his hair around in the ocean, and various adorable animals being possibly led to their slaughter.

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Rosie and Paige – SA

Rosie and Paige are best friends from Adelaide and seem like they’re always a little bit drunk on chardonnay (in the best way possible). Rosie has a big house, a handsome husband, and two beautiful young girls. Paige lives alone in a rental, has a dog that sometimes jumps in lakes, and talks a little too much about Rosie’s hot husband.

These two are the straight talkers of the group. Describing themselves as big and bold, they may be annoying to some, but they’re also the first ones to call anyone on their bullshit and seem to be taking the whole thing with the right sense of light-heartedness a chip-cooking competition judged by a middle-aged woman’s wet dream and a guy who made a paleo book for babies deserves.

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Monique and Sarah – NSW 

The thing you need to know about Monique and Sarah is that they’re cops. I say this because, despite the entire episode being staged at their house, it’s literally all I know about them. They joked about eating donuts, decked their place up like a crime scene, themed the restaurant ‘Crime and Nourishment’, parked a motorbike next to the table and wrote the menu in invisible ink that didn’t not make it look like semen. In case you didn’t get the message at that point, the producers also soundtracked the whole thing with the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop. 

In fairness, there was an actual reason the workmates were keen to share what they do. Both working in Mt Druitt Police Department, Monique and Sarah spend their days dealing with incidents of domestic violence and counselling young people in the community — tasks which they feel toughen them for the MKR kitchen. This is really honourable work and they deserve respect for it, however their latter point was probably a bit blown when they teared up over the consistency of pastry and gushed about their inability to function when Manu’s penis was under their roof.

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Matt and Cheryl – QLD

Let’s get one thing straight: I love Matt and Cheryl. After the whole table started speculating about the nature of their relationship, Cheryl (50) and Matt (26) proudly asserted they were a couple and Cheryl declared herself a cougar — a fact she clearly wanted known from the start having literally worn leopard print in the first scene of the show.

But that doesn’t mean the producers haven’t found plenty of reasons to make them objectionable. Let’s take a walk through their opening package.

At some point in this fever dream, Cheryl recounted the time Matt made her a chicken caesar salad and she rewarded him with her experienced, intellectual vagina and now I can’t look either of them in the eye.

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Gianni and Zana – VIC

Gianni is a 27-year-old lawyer and gym bro who wants to “put Italian food on the map” and, judging by his facial hair, is a big fan of Shannon Noll. His wife Zana is a 24-year-old lawyer and real-life Mean Girl who is physically repulsed by everyone on the planet. Together, they are a crude amalgamation of everything I hate in this world.

After a montage of them ruining people’s lives at work, taking selfies in their activewear, zooming up St Kilda Beach in a sportscar, and throwing the world’s most unpleasant dinner party on what’s presumably the set of The OC, Zana tells the camera she actually doesn’t give a fuck about the $250,000 prize because they’re already so rich. She then spends the episode shitting on every single dish the cops turn her way, soliciting compliments from Rich Nollsie, and making everyone yearn for more footage of Cheryl and Matt simulating oral sex on an ice cream.

Naturally, she’s now the poster girl of the show.

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My Kitchen Rules is on at 7.30pm every night from now until forever on Channel Seven.