Bath’s Ping Coombes Wins MasterChef Competition

Bath’s Ping Coombes has won this year’s BBC MasterChef competition, beating two others in the much-anticipated final of the cookery competition.

Ping successfully cooked her way through the past few weeks of MasterChef to the final, competing against the last two amateur chefs, Jack and Luke.

Full-time mum Ping moved to Bath eight years ago, and lives in Fairfield Park with her husband Andrew who runs a local e-commerce company, Concrete Studios.

In the final of the competition, broadcast tonight (Friday 16th May), Greg Wallace said: “I am amazed at the amount of work and appearance of your dishes. Those flavours, I haven’t experienced before. They absolutely thrill me, they are so so clever.”

Judge John Torode described Ping’s food as a thing of beauty.

We interviewed Ping earlier in the competition, you can find some of the highlights below.

What inspired you to enter MasterChef?

I have always liked to cook and experiment with different cuisines, and I have watched the show for years. I didn’t have the courage to enter until I was made redundant and my good friend sent me the application form.

I refused to let the redundancy get me down and decided perhaps entering would be a boost to my confidence.. or it might be a mistake!

I remembered thinking ‘what can I loose?’, so I filled in the application, and the rest is history!

Has cooking always been a passion for you/where did you learn to cook?

I didn’t cook really until I went to university here. I was about 21 and craved my mum’s cooking, and the only way to satisfy my craving was to make it myself!

Also I was eager to experiment with other types of food, than those I grew up with, so when I went to uni I started to learn different types of cooking.

I learnt through books and cooking programmes but my mum remains my constant inspiration and teacher.

Who inspired you to cook at this level?

My mum. She is a great cook and I absolutely love her cooking  – it puts a smile on my face. I hope to do the same in the future to whoever eats my food.

Has your time on MasterChef inspired you to do more professional cooking?

Doing more cooking definitely. I am constantly thinking about combinations of flavours and textures!