Jock Zonfrillo was a popular name as people knew him as a famous Scottish chef and MasterChef host, and eventually a judge. Not just Jock Zonfrillo net worth created headlines, but his life with two broken marriages, drug abuse made people curious.
The sudden demise of the Scottish Chef shocked everyone. His fans, family, and colleagues are all still processing the news about his death. Celebrity Chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver also shared their tributes on Instagram.
Well, to know more about his journey and how he changed his life, Let’s discuss Jock Zonfrillo.
| Name | Barry Zonfrillo |
| Professional Name | Jock Zonfrillo |
| Profession | Chef, Television presenter, Philanthropist |
| Known as | MasterChef Australia ( judge) |
| Cooking style | French, Scottish, Italian |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Age | 46 |
| DOB | 4 August 1976 |
| Died | 30 April 2023 |
| Parent(s) | Ivan and Sarah |
| Spouse | Lauren Fried (m.2017) |
| Children | 4 |
| Instagram Account | @postsbyloz |
| Twitter Account | @Zonfrillo |
Table of Contents
Childhood and early life
Zonfrillo, or Barry ‘Jock ‘Zonfrillo, was born on August 4, 1976, in Glasgow. The Scottish Chef grew up in Ayre.
He was born to a family with an ordinary background. His father, Ivan, was a barber, and he was from Scauri, Italy.
His mother, Sarah, worked as a hairdresser. Her family belonged to Scottish from Dalmellington. As for the Jock Zonfrillo nationality, he was Scottish but had Italian blood too. Jock also has an older sister.
The Chef’s early life is rather private, and there is not much to disclose. As for their education, it’s reported he attended Belmont Academy.
Drug use and addiction
Even before he hit his teenage age, Jock experimented with drugs. At 15, Jack started taking drugs, especially heroin.
Talking about how he was getting more and more addicted, he said it was a miracle that he was alive. He mentioned how publicly drugs are available for young children. There was certain music that attracted or alerted kids to drug locations.
He used 11 – 12 smoke pots, and his parents did not know about his drug addictions for a long time. Talking about the incident in an interview, the man revealed how one of his friends died due to drug abuse and that shocked him. The story eventually made him skip drugs and turn to cooking.
Career and breakthrough
Jock’s earlier career started in the kitchen when he was 12 years old. He worked part-time and worked at the restaurant. Jack also had her sister as a server, and he was doing a dishwasher job.
After working for three weeks at the restaurant, Jack learned to cook. In the restaurant, one of the chefs had a motorbike accident, which made Jack work for them.
When he was 15 years old, he worked as an apprentice for The Turnberry Hotel. Before joining, he left his school and continued his work in the kitchen.
Jock became the youngest chef
In 1993, Jock became Young Scottish Chef of the Year. At that time, he was 16 years old.
After working and completing his apprenticeship, Jock started his job at Arkle Restaurant. His first actual job at one Michelin starred in Chester.
During his work experience, Jock also sold drugs to fund his addiction. Because of his foul mouth outburst, the restaurant fired him from work.
After getting fired, he traveled to London. There, he started his work at The Restaurant Marco Pierre White for Marco Pierre White.
He worked alongside David Cavalier at Quaglino’s and Chapter One. In 1994, Jock moved to Australia, and for the next 12 months, he stayed there.
Throughout his traveling experience, several restaurants rejected him. After much rejection and struggle, he received an opportunity at Restaurant 41 in Sydney.
Dietmar Sawyere hired him, and he started as a line cook. However, after two months, Zonfrillo became a sous chef at the restaurant. However, his visa expired, and Jock had to return to London.
He started working for Gorden Ramsay’s Aubergine and stayed for three months. Apart from the restaurant, he resumed his work White at Oak Room and Les Saveurs. Later, he switched to Pharmacy. Jock worked for The Tresanton Hotel in Cornwell in the head position. They appointed him for the position at 22.
Moving to Australia and bankruptcy
In 2000, Jock immigrated from London to Australia. After arriving in Sydney, he went clean on the Heroin Cold Turkey, and since then, the Chef hadn’t consumed such drugs.
He continued with his profession, becoming the Restaurant 41’s head chef. There, Jock started using native ingredients in his cooking.
Even after staying clean, the Chef had several incidents, losing his cool on people around him. In 2002, he set his apprentice chef pants on fire because he was working too slowly.
In 2007, an accident caused Martin Krammer, the Chef, to burn on his hand. Martin held Jock accountable for it and sued the Chef.
Jock was required to pay the damage fine of $75,000. In May, the same year, he declared bankruptcy in the court of Federal Magistrates.
As per Martin Krammer, Jock never paid the fine. However, the restaurant did fire him for causing incidents and harming the staff.
Jock started to import and sell kitchen equipment along with consultancy. For a brief time, he worked in Australia, but later, he moved to Adelaide.
Starting his restaurant
After working for several restaurants and gaining experience, the Chef started his Orana and Street ADL in 2013.
Then, it replaced Bistro Blackwood on Street ADL in September 2017. The Orana received Restaurant of the Year in 2018 from Australia by Gourmet Traveller.
In the same year, Australia’s 2018 Hottest Chef List in The Australia listed Jock Zonfrillo as the Hottest Chef.
Jock’s restaurant gained recognition throughout the years. In 2019, The Good Food Guide named Orana as Restaurant of the Year.
Not just that, in 2019 and 2020, the restaurant received three hatted awards.
Food truck, bar, and downfall
After the grand success of the restaurant, Jock started his food truck ‘Nonna Mallozzi’ and bar’ Mallozzi.’
Jock’s food truck started in 2016. It was an Italian food based. However, the Chef had to close it after facing a loss of $140,000 in July 2019.
It didn’t stop here. Later in 2019, Bistro Blackwood and Orana closed in 2020. The companies offered the restaurants to voluntary administration on October 5, 2020. It’s a procedure similar to bankruptcy.
The company had an unpaid debt of $3.2 million. The downfall caused several issues for the Chef as he had to sell his family home.
As per the preliminary report filed with ASIC in October, the initial investigation was to keep restaurants trading while insolvent.
Orana Foundation
Zonfrillo started his Orana Foundation in 2016. The foundation helps preserve the historical techniques in cooking along with Indigenous Australian ingredients.
For the work, The foundation was awarded in October 2017 as The Good Food Guide for Good Award.
The Orana Foundation project has a database of 1,443 Abrogina in food plants they created while partnering with the University of Adelaide.
They launched it in 2020, providing information regarding the plants’ nutritional profile, flavor, taste, etc. It also had the optimal methods for cooking and preparations.
Later in 2020, Zonfrillo had an issue with The Australian where they questioned their management. However, Jock filed defamation regarding the issue in the Federal Court of Australia.
The publisher of the newspaper settled the case. They also printed their apology in The Australian on December 17, 2020, and website.
Debut in the Television industry
The Chef also debuted on television in 2014 as he hosted Nomad Chef on Discovery Channel.
In the show, Jock used to travel to different communities in 10 different countries. During the journey, he learned about the method of their cooking and methods of gathering ingredients.
Apart from Discovery shows, he appeared as a host for shows like Restaurant Revolution. It was a cooking reality show with teams turning their dream of the restaurant into reality.
Also, in 2016, he co-hosted with Chef Qu Jianmin for the show Chef Exchange from Adelaide’s city, Qingdao.
The show returned with two more seasons, focusing on chess and exploring the wine and food cultures of each other.
They announced Jock as the new judge for MasterChef Australia in October 2019. The show had judges like Melissa Leong and Andy Allen.
However, it was not the first time he appeared in the show. Previously, Jock did the show as a guest chef in the last three seasons.
He also did Junior MasterChef Australia in 2020 as one of the judges.
Works and Memoir
Not just the television series and reality shows, Jock worked as a programming director. From 2016 to 2019, he worked for the Tasting Australia food festival.
In July 2021, Jock sold the worry beads bracelets that had skulls under the brand Caim, making the sales go up to $500.
Zonfrillo’s memoir ‘Last Shot’ was published on July 28, 2018. The publisher is Simon & Schuster, but they also featured it in the Sydney Morning Herald. But they had questions about his story and claims.
They also question his drug use, hundreds of indigenous communities, and Macro Pierro White as a father figure. Commenting on this, White said almost everything mentioned about him in the book is wrong.
In reply, the publisher said the memoir is based on personal knowledge.
Personal life, relationship, and his death
Jock married twice before he met Lauren Fried. The Chef met his future wife on Twitter in 2014.
Mentioning the incident in his memoir ‘Last Shot,’ he previously met a woman at an event in Sydney who told Laurena about Jock. Also asked her to follow requests on his social media.
He said Lauren’s friend shared his photo and added a message saying she found the perfect person for her. Talking about the ‘sales pitch,’ her friend said Jock is European, has an accent, and is a Chef. Everything Lauren was looking for. And top of that, Jock was a champagne ambassador.
At the time, Lauren didn’t respond, but one night, she followed him on Twitter. The Chef also followed her back, but nothing happened for a while.
Eventually, they chatted, which led to their first date with Syndey. They instantly felt the connection, and he wanted to make this work. However, he realized his past with women was not good. To make himself a better person, he took therapies and worked on himself.
At The Rocks, he finally talked about his past, from his drug addiction to marriage. Also mentioned his daughter Ava and Sofia.
Jock said he believed in love at first sight, but with Lauren, nothing else could be better. The couple has two children, Alfie and Isla.
Jock Zonfrillo death
Zonfrillo was found dead in a hotel room in Melbourne on April 30, 2023. He was 46 years old and all set for his show.
According to reports, Jock was battling with bowel cancer. He was earlier diagnosed in 2016, but it came back in 2021.
No one was aware of his illness, not his friends or colleagues. During the second season of Celebrity MasterChef in 2021, the Chef underwent chemotherapy.
The police were called to conduct a welfare check on the hotel he was staying in. They found his body. However, his death is not ruled out as suspicious.
Jock Zonfrillo net worth
Jock Zonfrillo net worth was estimated to be around $5 million at the time of his death. His income mainly came from his chef and TV presenter career. Also, his annual salary was around $500,000 in MasterChef Australia.
As per the Gourmet Magazine, his Orana received the title restaurant of the year in 2018. But according to some sources, the Jock Zonfrillo net worth is more than what it’s recorded.
To answer how much is Jock Zonfrillo worth, here is what can help:
| Years | Net worth |
| Jock Zonfrillo net worth 2023 | $14 million |
| Jock Zonfrillo net worth 2020 | $12 million |
| Jock Zonfrillo net worth 2021 | $9 million |
| Jock Zonfrillo net worth 2020 | $8 million |
| Jock Zonfrillo net worth 2019 | $7 million |
Final thoughts
Jock had a struggling childhood as a teenager. Even after becoming a chef, he suffered from failed marriages and drugs. But he didn’t let it define himself. Instead of that, he grew the Jock Zonfrillo net worth by leaps and bounds, became a celebrity chef and made a name for himself.
He made a career out of his dedication to cooking, which helped him to heal from drug abuse. Jock also advocated mental health and addiction recovery, helping people who struggled like him.
FAQ
1. How Jock Zonfrillo died?
Natural causes ruled his death. As per reports, the Chef was suffering from bowel cancer that returned in 2021.
2. Where Jock Zonfrillo’s body was found?
Jock’s body was at Zagame’s House Hotel in Melbourne. The police found the body at 2 am on May 1, 2023.
3. Who will replace Masterchef Austria?
Jamie Oliver is reported to have signed a $2 million deal to replace the celebrity chef Jock Zonfrillo for the new season.
4. How old are Jock kids?
Jock has a son, 5 years old Alfie, and 2 years old daughter Isla. He also had two daughters from a previous marriage.
5. Was Jock Zonfrillo considered rich?
Jock has a net worth of 14 million USD and is a Scottish celebrity and Chef.
6. What was Jock Zonfrillo net worth during death?
The chef had a net worth of $14 million during death.
