John Douglas Torode MBE (born 23 July 1965) is an Australian-British celebrity chef and TV presenter.

John Douglas Torode was born on 23 July 1965 as the youngest of three boys in Melbourne, Victoria, but, between the ages of four (when his mother died) and ten, he lived in Maitland, New South Wales, with his brother Andrew, and his grandmother who taught him to cook.

[3] His early cooking career started at Le Coq Au Vin restaurant in Aspendale and his later apprenticeship was at several establishments in Beaumaris, both in Melbourne.

Torode has presented a show for the Good Food channel in the UK alongside former Celebrity MasterChef contestant Hardeep Singh Kohli, called New British Kitchen.

[11] In 2001 Torode shot a 12-part series for Taste CFN called Sea Breeze in which he travelled around the Balearic Islands cooking with local chefs and visiting popular tourist attractions.

Commissioned by Good Food's Luke Hale and UKTV's Sally Quick, the series was funded in partnership with a number of organisations including the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

This included eating in an underwater restaurant, discovering a street food market on the banks of the Yangtze River and making traditional dumplings with a Beijing family, ultimately inspiring the viewer to bring the cuisine of Asia into cooking.

In 2018, John Torode's Middle East (10 x 30 minutes) produced by Blink Films, featured the chef as he travelled across the region to find delicious eats.

[14] In 2005, the BBC television show MasterChef was relaunched with an updated format and with Torode and Wallace as presenters replacing Gary Rhodes.

Torode said in interviews that he enjoyed that the show is unscripted and that the cameras are just there to capture the genuine interactions between the judges and the contestants.

In October 2009, Torode opened a restaurant in Spitalfields market, Commercial street, London, called The Luxe.

[citation needed] Torode was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to food and charity.