MasterChef star George Calombaris opens up about darkest days and details restaurant comeback

George Calombaris is buzzing around a quiet pre-service kitchen, marvelling over a delivery of live marron and joking with his chefs as they fire up for another booked-out lunch sitting.

There was a time when he thought his restaurant days were over, but here he is: enthusing about the local produce, bubbling over with plans for new venues and about to wrap up his second successful pop-up venue in as many months.

For Calombaris, 2026 has been a year for doing things he thought he would never do, as the acclaimed chef embarks on “version two” of a career which has seen incredible highs and devastating, public lows.

The year started with his appearance on reality television series I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!, after politely declining the invitation to enter the jungle for seven years.

The experience would prove formative, acting as a platform for Calombaris to share his version of the well-documented collapse of his Melbourne restaurant empire, Made Establishment.

Then came back-to-back residencies, first a healing return to his hometown Melbourne, and then Perth, where The Nightly On met with Calombaris as he dipped his toe into the WA dining scene for the first time.

All of this was laying a path towards his next big move: the expansion of his new Sydney-based hospitality group.

Harbour Hospitality & Lifestyle has signed several new leases in the past few weeks, with new restaurants set to open in the next two years. Calombaris, 47, also plans to open his own signature restaurant in the harbour city he now calls home.

“There are a lot of projects on the boil, a whole load of assets that need to be open within the next 12 to 24 months,” he says.

“Going into this second chapter of a hospitality group, which I never thought I’d ever do again, is bloody exciting, but also, it’s daunting.”

By his side in Sydney are more than a dozen former staff members from his defunct Melbourne restaurants, but it’s not quite like old times.

In this new era, in a new city, Calombaris has a new philosophy borne from the process of rebuilding his life.

And George 2.0, he explains, has a powerful weapon. He is prepared to call out bull . . . t.

“You get told by PR gurus, ‘George, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that,’” he says.

“But I’m not going to be careful — if something is wrong, I’m going to stand up for what’s right, and call a spade a spade.”

He gives the example of a recent flight to Perth, when a rude passenger kicked the back of his seat the entire way. As passengers began to disembark, the same man had a crack at a “little old lady” about waiting her turn.

“Normally I would just shut up, but I’ve looked at him and gone ‘Oi, I’ve put up with you kicking me for the last four hours and you’re having a crack at this lady who just wants to get off the plane. Pull your head in,’” he recalls.

“I’ve come to a point where I’ve just got to be honest with myself. I don’t listen to noise from the outside anymore.”

This attitude has been hard-earned; there’s not much Calombaris hasn’t read or heard about himself by now.

But the barb which stung the most, particularly for his loved ones, was “wage thief”. The accusation was levelled at Calombaris in 2017 after Made Establishment uncovered $2.6 million in wage underpayments.

The discovery was made during an internal audit and the company self-reported to Fair Work Australia, paying back the amount owed to staff, which after further investigation totalled $7.8 million over six years.

“We owned up, we paid back and that is something that I know, and the people around me know,” Calombaris told fellow contestants during his appearance on I’m A Celebrity.

But a media storm ensued, and the business lost 30 to 40 per cent almost overnight.

“That’s from a $50 million turnover,” Calombaris recalls now.

“We were employing 550 people . . . it affects them just as much as it’s affecting me . . . the bread maker, the candle maker, the fishmonger.”

The outcry was amplified by Calombaris’ high profile. Not only were The Press Club, Gazi and Hellenic Republic among Melbourne’s most successful restaurants, but he was one of the most recognisable and well-liked identities in Australia due to a lengthy stint on TV juggernaut MasterChef Australia.

It made the subsequent fall from grace even harder. Made was unable to recover and in February 2020, the company entered voluntary administration.

“It was just . . . disaster,” he says.

“My family, myself and 550 of my staff went through a lot of pain.”

Devastated by the fallout, Calombaris and his wife Natalie Tricarico decided to relocate to Greece with their two children, but days out from the move a friend called with a warning.

“He said, ‘there’s this thing called COVID that’s happening, you can’t go’ . . . so instead we moved down to the (Victorian) coast.”

As the pandemic played out, Calombaris found himself isolated in more ways than one.

“The phone wasn’t ringing, there was just nothing. Silence. I thought ‘who am I? What am I doing with my life,’” he recalls.

“I started drinking, to numb the pain, and a couple of months went by and my best mate said ‘enough is enough.’”

So he went back to the kitchen, this time at home and for his family, and in the process rediscovered his passion for bringing joy to others through food.

“As much as I can sit there and lick my wounds, and feel sorry for myself, and I did that, the lightbulb went off. I went, ‘hang on, I have an incredible life to live’,” he says.

“Time is a healer. Time has given me my confidence back again, which is something that I struggled with for a good couple of years, and to come out of it healthy, my family is healthy, and with a good chunk of those old team members coming back to do version two, is bloody exciting,”

Calombaris will never forget those who stood by him during the dark days, namely Natalie, without whom he says “he would be dead”.

“That lady is a machine, she is a stalwart. She and the kids absolutely saved me, as did my sister and my brother-in-law, and my school mates, the ones who just came and stayed with me, talking rubbish, I owe a lot to them,” he says.

Those same people were behind Calombaris when he finally, upon the urging of his manager Justine May, agreed to participate in I’m A Celebrity.

“It’s given me so much more perspective on life. To be stripped away from all of your shields, your phone, your family, the security of your front door,” he says.

“It allowed us to talk openly and honestly about stuff, the good, the bad, the ugly, and hopefully, if one kid out there learns something from that, then I’ve done my job.”

He says the response from the public was overwhelming, and his loved ones were grateful people got to see “the George they know”.

“That for them meant more than it meant for me, because they really suffered through my dark time,” he says.

“My mother, my late father, I’m sure he’s looking down, they’ve gone through all the emotions.

“It was something that I’ll never forget, and I’m very grateful for it. And here we are now, I’m immersing myself back into the incredible food scene of Australia. I want to be in that spot again.”

Returning to Melbourne earlier this year to open pop-up restaurant Auto Greek would form a crucial and emotional part of Calombaris’ comeback.

He was uncertain about how he would be received but Auto Greek, at the Ovolo Melbourne South Yarra hotel, was extended from one to three months due to its popularity.

“That was phenomenal. Being in Melbourne, my hometown, seeing so many familiar faces, it was beautiful. It was a joy and a thrill,” he says.

“It was a big leap of faith for the Ovolo Hotel as well, it could have backlashed. And it could have backlashed in Perth, too.”

But the residency at Crown Perth was also a success, with refined Hellenic concept Greek booking out across its four-week stint in the former Bistro Guillaume space.

These experiences buoyed Calombaris as he prepared to ramp up his presence in Sydney, where he moved with his family in 2024.

“Geez, this industry’s taken me to the highs. It’s taken me to the absolute lows. I thought, ‘would I ever do it again, especially in Australia?’

“But you know what? I’ve got still so much to give.”

It’s an ambitious undertaking, opening numerous venues amidst a cost-of-living crisis.

“Let’s not shy away from the current climate in hospitality, it’s not what it was when I started Made Establishment 15, 20 years ago, but that’s okay,” Calombaris says.

“More than ever, we’ve got to thrill (our guests) and look after them and make sure they walk away going ‘geez, that was awesome,’ because they’re spending their hard-earned money.

“It’s about piecing together a sustainable business model that then allows team members to grow, to flourish . . . and I’ve got to enjoy myself, and have fun.”

Calombaris says the focus on his team, above all else, is the key to the new incarnation.

“The team around me is phenomenal. A lot of old faces, which is beautiful, but a lot of new, fresh faces, which are going to add a new dynamic to Harbour Hospitality,” he explains.

“I’m working on finding the next Shannon Bennett, the next Peter Gilmore.”

Pointing towards long-time head chef Serradan Sharp as he preps in the Greek kitchen, Calombaris says he is now a coach, not a captain.

“My job is helping him mentally and physically, how he can be a better version of himself, and not make the mistakes I made . . . that’s my job,” he says.

To do this, he says, he had to shed the “egotistical, control freak” part of himself in order to be a better manager.

“I’ve learnt a lot of lessons, there are a lot more lessons to learn, but there’s a lot more thoughtfulness in the way I step forward,” he says.

“I’m just grateful. I’m a different George. They say the leopard never changes its spots, that’s so much bullshit. I’ve done work in the prison space, spending time with first-time offenders, and they can change.

“And it’s up to us as a society to be a little bit more thoughtful, especially right now. So before you go yelling at the little old lady because she’s got up and skipped the queue, relax, calm down, what’s the rush?’”