Sag Harbor’s Eve Achuthan-Kozar will be among the stars in a high-stress, cutthroat TV cooking competition, part of the storied “MasterChef” franchise, in which the often-terrifying celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay plays host, judge, and tyrant.
If it sounds like any one of the hundreds of cooking competition shows currently on air, it’s not — all the contestants here are between the ages of 8 and 13, and they can all sauté, filet, or allumette their way around the kitchen with the confidence of a seasoned gourmet.
Welcome to season eight of “MasterChef Junior,” which premieres March 17 on Fox after a three-year hiatus.
Eve (Eva on the show), who turns 14 in April, and is in eighth grade at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, is one of the show’s 16 young “cheftestants” competing for the title of America’s Next MasterChef Junior, as well as a trophy and $100,000 in prize money.
“I’m really excited for the show to air,” Eve said Monday in a Zoom chat, during which she gave a nod to her culinary lineage: “I grew up around my dad cooking a lot, and my grandparents cooked a lot, and my mother cooked a lot. And I guess I just started helping them, and then that kind of grew into something bigger, and turned into something I really enjoyed,” she said.
Her dad is Arjun Achuthan, one of the founding members of the Hayground School and Jeff’s Kitchen, the school’s culinary arts program named after Jeff Salaway, the late owner of Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton and other South Fork eateries. Hayground students delve deep into the process of growing, cooking, and eating their own food, as well as learning about using local foods and sustainably grown produce. Students take turns planning and cooking lunches for their peers and teachers.
Eve acknowledged that the opportunity to cook regularly for her entire school instilled in her an early love for cooking. “I think I was 8 or 9 when I really started getting into it,” she said. “But I’ve cooked way before that, just like helping my mom and dad out.”
Filming of the show took place pre-pandemic when Eve was 11. Joining Mr. Ramsay in the judge’s arena is Aaron Sanchez, an award-winning chef, TV personality, cookbook author, and philanthropist, as well as Daphne Oz, daughter of Dr. Mehmet Oz, and a for mer cohost of the television show “The Chew.” Also this season, Mr. Ramsay’s daughter Tilly Ramsay will make a guest appearance on an episode that features a special doughnut challenge. Each week the young chefs, clad in monogrammed white aprons, compete in a culinary challenge to impress the judges and survive elimination. This year, the show also takes contestants on the road, where they must cook at a historical renaissance fair and a motocross track.
“I really enjoyed all the challenges,” Eve said of the competition, but she singled out the season’s premiere called, “Punch and Munch,” which involved the young hopefuls punching through a wall to reveal a secret food ingredient.
“We then got to cook with whatever we punched through and grabbed. It was honestly so much fun. It was very exciting,” she said, without revealing any secrets of the show.
And did Mr. Ramsay — notorious for his ill temper in the kitchen — behave himself?
“Yes. He was really nice and also a little scary. It was cool to be in his presence,” she said with a smile, and added that her dream is to one day have her own restaurant with three Michelin stars, and be a female Gordon Ramsay. “I think he’s a huge person that I really looked up to over the years. I thought he was an amazing chef.”
Eve, who will attend Pierson High School after graduating from Hayground this year, said if she wins the $100,000 prize (of course, she already knows the outcome), she would use the money to “pay for college, buy a new car, and help her parents with bills.”
Her father, Mr. Achuthan, the chef-educator, summed up his daughter’s culinary prowess in an email to The Star: “Eve is the go-to student chef in Jeff’s Kitchen at the Hayground School. She can do any job from baking to sautéing — fast, efficient, and tasty. She likes foods to zing.”
Tune in to MasterChef Junior on March 17 at 8 p.m. on Fox, to see if Mr. Ramsay and company agree.
--
Correction: An earlier version of this article had an incomplete last name for Eve Achuthan-Kozar.