The Plating Game: Colin Mathura-Jeffree

We asked model and television host Colin Mathura-Jeffree to share his food loves so we could create a dish especially for him.

Model, television host and man-about-town Colin Mathura-Jeffree is the sort of guy you imagine would be intimidating in person. In his colourful career, he’s graced catwalks for the likes of Versace, judged New Zealand’s Next Top Model and hosted New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker, cha-cha’ed for the cameras in Dancing with the Stars and served as an ambassador for multiple charities, among much else.

Named New Zealand’s Sexiest Man by Metro in 2012, he cuts a striking figure. Yet he’s more down-to-earth than his celebrity profile would suggest – a thoughtful and considerate interview subject and a lover of such Kiwi classics as bacon and egg pie and ginger crunch. We caught up with him to hear about dining with the Maharani of India, the lamb roasts he enjoys at home and overindulging in chocolate-covered coffee beans on his first modelling shoot.

What do you like to eat? What are some of your favourite foods?

I’m a real foodie and I’d struggle to pick a favourite. For me, it’s all about seasonal food, so it does change. At the moment I love soups and a good roast and a lovely pie and maybe a lasagne, and when I head towards summer it tends to be beautiful salads.

While I was growing up, my family would go through these periods of being vegetarian, before it was a trend, and it was delicious. Growing up, I never wanted to eat meat. But as an adult, I’m virtually carnivorous.

Have you got a favourite meat?

Medium-rare? [Laughs.] I love lamb and beef. The main thing with meat is that you’ve got to know how to cook it really well – it doesn’t have to be an enormous amount, but it has to be rich. You have to treat the animal that's sustaining your life with respect.

What was dining in the Mathura-Jeffree household like growing up?

Both my parents were incredible cooks and the food story in my family was very diverse. We had every type of curry. And both my parents had particular specialties they did really well. My father was really great at all sorts of bone broth and he was more adventurous, too – he would make ice cream or ceviche, things like that. My mother made an incredible New York cheesecake and just the most exotic curries. And both my parents would hold these incredible dinner parties for lots of people and as children, me and my siblings would be made to serve the food and be quiet… it was a fascinating upbringing.

As a child during the 70s and 80s, I would go to my friends’ houses and the food was awful because it was so limited. And then I realised why my friends – all of them, famously – were always wanting to come home to eat at my house!

What do you grab for lunch on a busy day?

I prefer to make time. But if I’m on the go and I’m hungry, I love just letting a place reveal itself to me, wherever I am, and just running with it. And if it’s rustic and rough, I kind of love it – I feel like I’m living in a movie. As long as you can see people inside, you know it’s going to be interesting. And then I ask the staff or the customers, what would you recommend? You can have a really great little moment even in the middle of a busy day if you let it be an interesting experience. I hate being time-poor – but if I’m going to be time-poor, I try to make it an adventure.

Do you like to cook?

I never really cooked in my life. I was really challenged during Covid because I live alone and there was this moment I realised I can’t just go out and eat. And then a very strange thing happened – I learned that I had actually absorbed a lot of my parents’ and siblings’ cooking ability without really knowing. So I started cooking and putting videos up just on my Instagram and I was cooking incredible curries and roasts. It sounds so ridiculous, but I suddenly realised, when you put your mind to it, you can cook anything – who knew?!

You hosted four seasons of New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker (NZHHB). Do you like to bake yourself – or eat baked goods?

So I didn’t want to do NZHHB – I had been the host of New Zealand’s Next Top Model and on that show, I knew everything I was talking about. I didn’t know anything about baking. I was just told to go to the casting for it and then it went really well and it turned out I couldn’t get out of it. But the show turned out to be hilarious because bakers are nuts – I mean, they’re so obsessed with perfection. A cook, dare I say this, can play with ingredients and cheat – but in baking, you can’t cheat. I’m not a baker myself. But it’s not like my house wasn’t full of baking growing up – my mother had tins of ginger crunch, peppermint slice, cheesecake in the fridge.

Tell me about eating as a model. What was your diet like during the early days of your career?

I often did shows and shoots where there’d be a breakfast menu, a lunch menu, a dinner menu, lots of wine, you’d walk on set and they’d be popping champagne – there was plenty of food around. On my first ever shoot they had a bowl of chocolate covered coffee beans, which I’d never had before. I ate so many of them that my eyes were buzzing!

I think it’s a touchy subject for our industry, but I never saw any restrictions with food when I was modelling. Of course when you’re younger, too, you’ve got a really high metabolism, so you’re going to be hungry.

The most amazing food memory from my modelling days is probably the lunches and banquets I had with the Maharani of Udaipur, an Indian queen. When I first went to India, I had lunches with her all the time and we would have the most divine vegetarian curries and Kingfisher beers.

The first ever time I went to India in the early 90s, to model, I was taken to a royal banquet and I was so out of my depth. The chapatis just kept firing onto my plate and I didn’t know how to stop it, so I just kept eating, feeling like I was going to burst, until the Maharani said, you’re allowed to stop! It was amazing.

Do you like to entertain?

In the 90s and 00s, I would entertain lots and hold dinner parties, but I’d always hire people to cook – it saved a lot of stress. So my friends would come round and we’d have cocktails and then champagne, you’d start with an apéritif and then you’d have wine accompaniment with a lovely meal and there’d always be lots of laughter. Round the back of the house, maybe you’d put a tent up and then you’d set up there and talk and laugh till the early hours of the morning.

I  also organised lots of midnight picnics – so we’d have sandwiches, quiche, doughnuts and lots of wine, and we would just find a spot, Western Springs or somewhere crazy in the city, and just lay it out and have a picnic. It was just wild, just mad. These days I’m a lot more antisocial, but I still remember those times and my friends do too.

What’s a treat that always lifts your mood?

Ginger crunch. A sweet will always take you to a happy place, because it hits the pleasure centres of your brain. And I just love ginger crunch and a lovely espresso coffee and a good book. Food can take you out of any negative situation.

Or just something made with care and love. I once made a remark to my gardener that he makes a fantastic bacon and egg pie, and now he occasionally brings me a bacon and egg pie, which is lovely. And then he leaves and I eat it all in one go – and of course it’s not a little pie, it’s a tray.

Is there anything you don’t eat?

No. I think there really isn’t. There’s nothing I love more than someone saying, “Here, try this”.

I do react to certain foods now – like I’ve had some bad experiences with eating too many milk products, that kind of thing. But I go by the Chinese philosophy of food, which is kind of like, when your phone or computer doesn’t work, switch it off and then switch it back on; take a break. So I’ll just take a break from whatever’s giving me the reaction and then go back to it slowly.

But no there’s nothing I won’t eat, really. Even aeroplane food – I’m highly entertained by airplane food. I always want to look at all the options! I’ve travelled so much that I’ve eaten quite a bit of it. It’s a fascinating meal you’re offered on different airlines. One time I was on Malaysian Business Class and they came down with these buckets of kebabs on skewers – like beef, chicken, vegetarian – and they just looked at me and without me saying anything, they said, “you look like you could have about ten” and then just put ten on my plate. And then there was a bucket of peanut sauce and I thought how on earth…? and the air hostess just slopped it on my plate before I could say anything – what if I had a peanut allergy?! And then she just continued on her way… God it was hilarious.

Tell me about some of your favourite restaurants.

I don’t go there enough, but if foreign friends of mine came into town, I’d take them to Cazador. It’s got a special place in my heart because one of my best friends took me there when we were young and wanted to act like adults! And I would go there with my family and with my friends. I think it’s in an interesting locale, it’s seasonal, it’s local and it’s constantly evolving, so it really stands out for me from the sea of great restaurants we now have.

I also think, there’s a lot of wankiness with food in general. So be it, that’s okay. There’s lots of on-trend places that you go to because you’re cool, because it’s cool, because the narrative of the place is cool… but Cazador’s a hidden gem and it’s not just about trendiness. If I’m having an intimate birthday party, table of five to ten, that’s where I’d go.

What are some of your favourite food memories?

In 2000, I went to Los Angeles to meet agents, and it was fantastic. The agent who met me was like, “You need to have a real American cheeseburger”, and he took me to this sort of stand alone place. It was very rough, all brick and stone and concrete, and there was a sort of a centrepiece where they were cooking surrounded by open benches and things. And there were prostitutes in lingerie and what looked like gangsters hanging around… anyway, we had cheeseburgers and beers and it was the best cheeseburger I ever had. They really go hard on their pickles over there, it was delicious.

What else? When I was hosting NZHHB, there’d be like four big tables of cake backstage and I was only needed for the intros and outros, so the rest of the time I’d just be hanging out looking at the food. There’d be no spoons or forks around, so I’d just be using my bare hands to dig into the cheesecake, like some sort of sugar-crazed food addict. And then they’d go where’s Colin? and I’d realise there were no tissues and I’d come out and be talking to the contestant and the crew would be wiping the cream off my face like, “where have you been?!” That was fun.

And when I was modelling around the world, I used to get awfully homesick for New Zealand. I’d call home and ask Mum, can you make me a leg of lamb roast? And I would come home and no one would be home but there’d be this leg of lamb in the oven and there’d be mint sauce and gravy, parsnips and beetroot, roasted turnips and carrots and pumpkin… it would just bring me so much joy. When I have lamb, it always reminds me of how much I love New Zealand and my family, you know?

What would be your last meal?

I just don’t think like that. I potentially treat every meal as a last, because everything is a journey and we only have moments. You’ve got to enjoy life as it comes.

Click here to find the recipe for Colin's Rack of Lamb with a Pistachio and Herb Crust