Why do the best chefs in the world go on Masterchef?

In the latest (UK) series, Ferran Adrià was prominently featured tasting the contestants food, possibly the most famous in a long line of critically acclaimed multi Michelin starred chefs.

Presumably they don't get paid much for appearing, and most of them have extremely long waiting lists for their restaurants. In the case of Adrià, he doesn't even have a restaurant or recently released book to sell. Why do they bother going on the show?

casting masterchef

Best Answer

I have not seen the show, but with celebrity shows like this it usually comes down to one of the following two reasons, most of the time a combination of the two:

Publicity: By getting on a major TV event, you increase the value of your name just by being seen. You can then use that fame to sell stuff easier (books, your restaurant, parfum, clothes, ..). You also increase the chance to get on similar or even more prestigious shows.
Money: Shows that are heavily based on the celebrity of the people featured usually pay a good amount of money to those people. The more famous your celebrities are, the more viewers and more revenue from advertisement you get, so it makes sense to pay more money to convince more famous celebrities to appear on your show.

I doubt that Masterchef is an exception to this. People watch it because it features famous cooks. So they will pay good money to these cooks to increase viewership. For the cooks this is a good chance to stay famous, which is usually not something that happens just by being a good cook, but also by knowing how to advertise yourself and your restaurant.

Last but not least, most celebrities like being famous, so it's not really hard for you to convince them to appear on TV, especially when you offer them money as well.