Plate of Origin will star Mehigan and Preston as well as My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Feildel. But Calombaris is noticeably absent from the lineup.
Online Australian magazine Now To Love reports that "the series will showcase teams of diverse cultural backgrounds who are passionate about their unique cuisine. Described as the "Olympics of cooking", the teams will face off in the kitchen as they pit their different cuisines against one another."
In July, this year, Channel 10 announced that the contracts for Mehigan, Preston and Calombaris as the MasterChef Australia judges would not be renewed.
Their departure from the popular cooking show, after 11 years, was speculated to have come about due to controversy surrounding wage disputes at Calombaris's restaurants. Calombaris was revealed to have been underpaying his staff by A$7.83m (about R77m).
Fans of the show had lobbied for Calombaris's removal from the judging panel of the hit show, however, the broadcaster decided to not renew the contracts for all three judges.
