“I was lost before Lauren”

It may seem a charmed life, but MasterChef Australia judge Jock Zonfrillo has had serious lows with the highs. He tells Sue Smethurst how love saved him.

- Sue Smethurst

Jock Zonfrillo raises his three-year-old son, Alfie, high above his head and playfully blows raspberries on the toddler’s tummy, soaking up fits of giggles. “I’m a complete clown – totally immature most of the time,” Jock says, laughing.

With the blond poppet now wedged on his hip, the Scottish chef, once described as a “kilt-wearing firebrand”, moves like bottled lightning around the kitchen, making coffee for the TV crew filming at his Melbourne home while checking on wife Lauren as she feeds the latest addition to their family, 14-week-old Isla.

“He’s a tornado!” laughs Lauren, 40, a business advisor and marketing specialist who regularly appears as a panellist on ABC series Gruen.

“He’s got a lot of energy, he’s always fun to be around and he’s a very proud Scot,” she adds, recalling how Jock would play bagpipe music when Alfie was a baby to alert him that it was dinnertime. “When the bagpipes played, that meant it was time to eat, but sometimes he played bagpipe music if he was homesick or we had friends around, and poor little Alfie would be sitting there with his mouth gaping open, waiting for food. His Scottish charm is one of the things I love about him – but, thankfully, there’s no bagpipes with Isla.”