‘I thought I was going to be sick. I was very nervous about MasterChef’: Monica Galetti’s consuming passions

Two things quickly become clear about Monica Galetti. The first is that she has an incredibly soft maternal side to her. The second is that, despite this, I wouldn’t want to cross her. The chef has had to be tough in a competitive industry where she has often been the only woman, and person of colour, in a kitchen. Before MasterChef came calling, the Samoan chef was the owner of Mere, the fine-dining restaurant in London’s swanky Fitzrovia, along with her sommelier husband David Galetti. She was previously a senior sous-chef at Le Gavroche, Michel Roux Jr’s two Michelin star offering, and she has appeared on our screens on MasterChef: The Professionals, and Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby, which she co-hosts with Rob Rinder.

‘I had such a free childhood. I loved it,’ says the chef, who was born Monica Fa‘afiti in Upolu and initially raised by two of her aunts, as her mother worked in New Zealand. With two older brothers and a younger brother and sister, as well as many cousins, she was never bored. ‘I was a young child growing up in the Pacific islands. It was very family orientated,’ she recalls. ‘I had lots of children to play with, whatever that was — running into the plantation to pick guavas, for example. Constantly, I got caught sitting in a cocoa tree. The pods where you make chocolate from are such a delicious fruit. I'd sit in the tree and eat the cocoa pods, and then get smacked, because I'd be told that I'd get a sore stomach if I ate too many.’ Perhaps this is where her love of quality ingredients began. ‘Fresh produce was just a way of life for us growing up,’ Monica says.

Samoan culture meant she regularly attended Sunday school, where there would always be prizes for tasks like memorizing Bible passages. She credits this for both her religious beliefs and her competitive streak. ‘I used to win a lot of the prizes there,’ Monica says. Growing up, her father was a mechanic and her mother worked for a telecom company. When she was around eight years old she moved to New Zealand to be with her parents, as her family wanted the children to have better schooling and more opportunities. Monica lived first in Auckland, then in Wellington, attending Naenae College and then the Central Institute of Technology in Upper Hutt, where she began her training as a young chef. ‘It was frightening,’ she says, of the move. ‘For the first time, I had to wear long sleeves, and I remember putting on a turtleneck for the first time and just itching all over. I was not used to wearing clothing like that. I found it very cold there, compared to Samoa, and then, of course, I had to learn to speak English as well. It was a whole new thing.’ The biggest change, however, was edible. ‘The food was very different too. You had to buy fruit, which I thought was very strange, as opposed to just picking pineapples and mangoes off the tree when they were ready.’

It was a diploma in hospitality that sparked her passion for cooking. ‘You had to spend the first part of training as a chef in the kitchen, and when I first walked into the kitchen I knew that was what I was going to do forever, from that day.’ Monica discovered a knack for competitive cooking, then she was away, representing New Zealand in cooking competitions internationally. That is how she first came to Europe. ‘I fell in love with London,’ she recalls. At the age of 23, she made the move to live there. ‘I left in 1999 to come to the UK for what was meant to be a year at the most, and it’s been 26 years now.’

Although she had been a chef de partie in New Zealand, she went back to being a commis (or junior) chef to join the esteemed French restaurant Le Gavroche. ‘I was willing to do that. I lived and breathed the kitchen life. My colleagues were my best friends,’ she says. Eventually she rose to the position of senior sous chef, and was the first woman to hold such a position at the restaurant. This is also where she met her French husband, David, who was the restaurant's head sommelier. ‘He fell in love with me straight away,’ Monica says, laughing. ‘I think in an establishment like that, it's just so full on, you probably wouldn't meet anyone otherwise, so it's just wonderful that I had someone who understood the hours that we worked, because he was in the same industry. They share one daughter. ‘She’s at university now, so I’m missing her,’ Monica says. ‘It's the hardest thing that I wasn't prepared for. I knew it was going to be hard, and I was dreading her leaving to go to university, but the hardest thing was after we had dropped her off. I remember my husband and I leaving and walking down the street and literally feeling like something had broken in me, that I was leaving a part of myself behind. I can’t wait for her to come home so that I can cuddle her to the point where she just gets so fed up with me. Now I only realize what I put my own parents through,’ she pauses, before reminding me: ‘Don’t forget to call your mum.’

MasterChef:The Professionals came about in 2009, as the casting team wanted someone who had a good rapport with Michel Roux on the show. ‘He’s like my older brother,’ she says. Fame, however, was not a natural calling. ‘I thought I was going to be sick. I was very nervous about it. I didn't know anything and I had no training to do any television work. They just said to be myself, and I only knew how to be a chef,’ she recalls. She was very direct with contestants when she gave them feedback, like she would be in a real kitchen, and some viewers nicknamed her ‘Nasty Monica’. ‘It is what it is,’ she says of the time. ‘I hadn’t planned on doing any television at all, it was always about being a chef first and foremost.’

She’s now working with Itsu, the British, east-asian inspired fast food chain, on their new noodle pots. ‘I did tell them I wasn’t a fan of the product the way it was,’ she says bluntly, before describing how she worked with the chain to re-make the product from scratch. ‘For me to do something, it has to be done properly,’ she clarifies, with a dose of that innate gritty Monica-ness that has been a staple of her career. She is also currently working on the board of the charity restaurant, 130 Primrose, which is about to launch in Primrose Hill and will help to support the homeless, and she is consulting with a restaurant called Tasi that's opening in Samoa, at Monalei Villas in Apia. ‘I'd always wanted to give back to my people. I’ve lived abroad for so long and done great things abroad,’ she says, with a glint of homesickness. ‘The fact is that I can take some of that knowledge back to Samoa now — because I know how difficult it is to actually try and get that skill level there.’

Your aesthetic hero

I think now, at this particular age, I tend to reflect back on my parents quite a bit, as my food heroes. The fact that everything was just so simple and delicious and fresh growing up, and that was because they knew nothing else. They've taught me that.

A book you’ve found inspiring

The book I found most inspiring, and literally only just completed reading for the first time in English, has been the Bible. I finished it two days ago. Samoan culture is always based around churches, but I used to go to a Samoan church that was very strict, and I kind of lost my connection to the church in my teens, and drifted away from it. So I’ve always said I’m a Christian, but I never really knew what that meant until maybe last year, and now I'm fully in.

The music that you work to

I love having music on the go, but the playlist that we have depends on who's in the kitchen. You always hear something like: ‘Alexa, put Smooth Radio on,’ if my daughter's not got rock music going, so it’s sort of a happy medium for everyone when we're cooking.

Your favourite painting

With the family a couple of years ago, we went to the Sistine Chapel and saw the ceiling by Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam. The awe of it was something quite beautiful.

A possession you’d never sell

My mum used to love Chanel Number 5, so I have a full bottle, of what was my mum's last bottle, that still sits on my dressing table. I would never sell that.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

It was a Japanese exhibition of kimonos over the years at the V&A. It was so stunning to the point that I decided to get a kimono if I ever went to Japan. I forgot when I was there recently, but I am going to go back with the family next year so I want to do that then.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Definitely my family, whether they want to come or not — they’re getting stranded with me. Also goggles, a diving suit, because I like to dive, and also to survive, a great set of kitchen knives, a solar-powered music system, decent shoes and a water purifier.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Hassler Roma hotel in Italy. It was very classic. The brother and sister that took it over are so wonderful and warm. For me, hotels are very much about the people, otherwise, it's just an empty building. It’s the same with restaurants as well. The Nimb hotel in Copenhagen, which is in the middle of an old theme park, was also something quite special. The one that's been built in Samoa, Monalei Villas in Apia, is also very special. I think, because it's a country where I was born, that it is definitely one I would always go back to.

The last podcast you listened to

The last podcast I listened to was probably the one Giles Coren and his wife have [Giles Coren Has No Idea] because they’re just bickering mostly, and I know them, so I find it quite funny to listen to.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I look forward to getting up in the morning and starting the day. I find life such a gift. When I get up I do a little prayer and then do a Bible reading, but then even to take just 10 minutes to be outside in the garden when it's so early, like 6:30 in the morning, when the sun's just coming up. I find that such a beautiful time of the morning, just to have a bit of that space before everything starts and appreciate life, in a moment with my God. That's my day set.

The person who would play you in a film of your life

Well, The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] couldn’t do it. I’d need a Samoan out there that could. I don’t know, maybe Zoë Kravitz? She’s pretty cool. I think she’d rock a blonde haircut too.

The items you collect

I don’t collect them, but I have a nice few handbags. I tell my husband that they’re an investment, because they'll all go to my daughter and become vintage. Every now and then I’ll let him put his car keys in one of them too, or even his wallet sometimes.

The best present you've ever received

My dad had this gold watch. It wasn't anything stupidly expensive, but for him it was. He was wearing it one day and I was teasing him. I said: ‘Oh, Dad, that would look better on my wrist.’ So he took it off, and he put it on my wrist, and said: ‘When I pass away, this is yours.’ He left it to me, so that's very special. Also all the little cards my daughter has written over the years when she was tiny. Those I find really precious.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten.

The most memorable meal I've eaten is memorable for a different reason. We were having lunch and there was a bit of a commotion happening a table or so across from us, then all of a sudden, I noticed one of the guests on the other side who looked shocked. A woman was choking. There was someone trying to do the Heimlich movement on the guest. We've done first aid courses — they are very important when you're running a restaurant — so I knew that if someone is choking, you have about four or five minutes before it gets really dangerous for them. I sort of kept an eye on it, but members of the staff kept running past our table crying, so I said to my husband that we had to go and help. The guy who was doing the Heimlich was doing it too low, so I put my husband there to do it instead and everything came out. I had a napkin ready, so I just caught it, wrapped it, handed it to the staff, and said to everyone: ‘Just let them be. Give them space.’ That was a meal that became memorable, because it's also a restaurant that we go to quite a bit. On the last time we visited, maybe they forgot what had happened, but they put us on that table.

For more information on Monica's work with itsu, see their website.