A St Ali double shot latte with MKR's Manu Feildel

It’s hard to imagine MKR’s Manu Feildel, the epitome of cool, dodging insults and airborne fry pans. But long before reality cooking fame, the novice chef’s kitchen was ruled by a temperamental drunk who baptised apprentices with fire.

“He was an a—hole,” says Manu, in a lilting Gallic accent that makes it sound like a compliment . “But he was testing my hunger to cook. After a year of torture he said, ‘You clearly want it, now I will teach you everything’. I owe him much.”

It’s a tantrum-free kitchen this morning at hip St Ali in South Melbourne, where caffeine zealots are taking morning sacrament, in Manu’s case a double-shot latte.

Heads swivel when he passes: ruggedly handsome with trademark stubble and slicked back hair, but less dapper than on TV, in a tattoo and paunch-revealing T-shirt. “I love the finer things,” he confesses. “But carbs, full cream and my body type? Eeek.”

Also see:

• Nominate your favourite dish with #TWRMustEat & win!
• Recipe: Morgan Hipworth’s Golden Gaytime Ice Cream Sandwich
• How culinary king Chris Lucas conquered Melbourne dining

Perhaps he should retrace the Kokoda Track, an “incredible experience” he trained for “up and down steps with weighty backpacks” in 2013? “I could,” Manu shrugs. “But MKR is gruelling enough.”

Manu’s career is the classic follow-your-gut tale: the “hopeless daydreamer” who abandoned circus school at 15 to pursue cooking. He rose from lackey to award-winning head chef in eight “really tough” years in London, before heading Down Under, where a nerve-wracking

Ready Steady Cook audition took him from kitchens into lounge rooms. “My five ingredients were going terribly,” Manu says. “I said to camera, ‘I look like a wanker’, but got the job. ‘You’re so natural,’ they said. ‘Stay that way.’”

Fame might have gone to the 43-year-old’s stomach, but not to his head; fatherhood and a modest upbringing keep him grounded, so do trips to poverty-stricken countries.

“In Africa with [charity] Plan International, I cooked for 30 villagers with ingredients I had to kill, pluck and clean. For them it was like I’d served foie gras, truffles and caviar, the best thing ever. It was very emotional.”

LOOK OUT FOR …

• My Kitchen Rules screens on Channel Seven, Sundays at 7pm and on Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 7.30pm.

BREW HA HA

St Ali

• 12-18 Yarra Place
• South Melbourne
• stali.com.au

THE VIBE  ‘‘Rock star’’, according to St Ali founder Salvatore Malatesta – Quentin Tarantino’s haunt when in town. Oh, and MKR judges. “It’s the friendliest cafe I know in Melbourne,” Manu says.

THE BREW Coffee is religion at St Ali, pioneer of Melbourne’s ‘‘third-wave coffee movement’’. They select 85 per cent grade, single -origin, single-estate, blends directly from farmers.

THE DISH The North African fry-up – scrambled eggs, merguez (spicy lamb sausage), avocado, chickpeas, chilli, coriander salad, and sourdough toast – passed the Manu test with flying colours.