The People's (Dessert) King

Face-to-face with MasterChef, Reynold Poernnomo in Singapore.

- Muhammad Amirul

It would not do Reynold Poernomo justice to describe him simply as a “fan-favourite MasterChef alumni”. His fans will have you know that he is nothing less than MasterChef royalty, having affectionately declared him as the “Dessert King”. However, Reynold himself insists that he is very much like the rest of us, just a normal guy working hard to achieve his goals.

A skilled pastry chef in his own right and an owner of KOI Dessert Bar, Reynold remains completely humble and earnest when it comes to his love for cooking and desserts. It is easy to see why millions of viewers fell in love with him during the seventh season of MasterChef Australia.

We recently caught up with him at the MasterChef Dining & Bar event in Singapore where he told us about what he has been up to since being on the hit show, his new found love for Muay Thai and most importantly: Whether or not he believes that guilt-free desserts truly exist.

What got you interested in cooking? 

The first thing that got me interested in cooking was watching season one of MasterChef Australia. The pastry chef Adriano Zumbo came on and he did his first pastry test. It was macarons with salted caramel pannacotta. I got really intrigued so I tried to make one at home and that was the first dessert that I had ever made. What really got me into my gastronomic journey is reading Grant Achatz’s cookbook “Alinea” and seeing how food can be so manipulated but without staying away too far from the root of the dish. It is amazing, the kind of food that he does. I’d say he’s like a genius.

You come from a family of chefs. Did that have any impact on you?