Earlier this week, Michelle Hancock, Director of Development and Alumni, sat down over a cuppa with Munopa Nhete (OQ 2023), who reached the Masterchef semi finals earlier this year. Michelle discovered why Munopa often chooses to cook fish in competitions and what she found most challenging about competing on national television. Read on to learn more…
What have you been up to since you left Queen’s?
When I left school I knew I wanted to work in food but I didn’t know in what capacity. I knew working in a restaurant wasn’t really my goal.
I’d been approached to go on Young Masterchef when I was still at school, but I hadn’t told anyone. Whenever I do cooking competitions I don’t like the pressure of other people knowing so I keep it completely secret until it’s over. When they approached me about it, I was still doing my A levels and debating whether to go to university. I thought, I can’t try and juggle the two in case I need these A levels for something in the future.
The year after I left school, they approached me again and I was more open this time, but as the date got closer I thought to myself ‘I’m not prepared enough’. I don’t bake, I never make desserts and I knew that was going to come up and I didn’t want that to be my downfall. So I just thought to myself, it’s better for me to continue my gap year, learn more about food, continue cooking and if the opportunity comes again next year, I will definitely take it then.
So the following year when they approached me to go on the show, I was ready. I went through the whole application process, and it was quite a long wait from the time you apply to when you get told – about eight weeks. I had to do an audition in Bristol, in the middle of a heatwave. Because I was trying to challenge myself, I decided to make a dessert. I had to take that on the train with me to Bristol and I had it in a massive cooler box. I was honestly about to cry on the train because I had jelly and mousse and all these things – I’d made a mille feuille. I went to the audition and it was great. They told me: you’re going to be on the show in three weeks and I was like OK!
What was your Masterchef experience like?
I didn’t want to panic so I waited two weeks before I started practicing for my first round dish, with the rationale that if I over-practice it, I’ll have ruined the dish that seemed such a good idea. I cooked fish for my first dish and just continued to try to make more exciting recipes and I like to think it went pretty well.
The hardest part of the whole competition was switching my mind to a competitive mindset, harder than doing the food. I had to really focus to remember that this isn’t a friendly, social thing where I get to show people my food. It was great, I made lots of friends in the kitchen – you’re surrounded by people who love the thing you love as much as you do, if not more!
What are you doing now?
Post-Masterchef I started Forks and Fables. I’ve always had a page called Forks and Fables and it just started with me posting about my food, when I was 14. Obviously, I got cringed out by myself and wiped the entire page out when I was in Sixth Form. Which I regret because knowing how the internet works I could have been a food influencer by now! That’s the cost of believing in cringe I guess.
I decided to turn Forks and Fables into a private dining business. I started doing dinner parties and holiday catering, and this summer I worked for four weeks in Cornwall. That was probably the most challenging thing I’ve had to do because I was cooking for 16 adults and seven kids every day, three meals a day. It sounds like a lot but I’ve catered for way more people before and it’s actually easier to cook a lot of food than a little. I absolutely loved it and that confirmed that my ideal job in the food industry, for now at least, is more private dining.
I now offer a weekly meal service. I’ve got a client base in Gloucestershire, in the South Cotswolds, and another client in Devon. I plan, prepare and cook meals for them all each week. I love it. It’s great. You get to know the people, and my food style is very much informed by storytelling and my passion for reading, so if I meet the family and they say we’re going on holiday to Thailand, we’ll pivot the entire menu to include lots of Thai food. So I get to do research and the discovery of the food as well as going to make it.
How did your love for food and cooking begin?
I wasn’t really interested in watching TV as a child but I loved watching the Food Network, and I would sit for hours after school and that’s all I’d watch. I’m quite a visual person, I’m really good at visual memory and I would remember all these dishes. I ended up making my own packed lunches for school and I learned how to make wraps and all sorts of sandwiches and that was the beginning of me starting to cook some things. Eventually I’d be coming home from school and wanting to make my own dinner to try a recipe I’ve seen. And by the time I was about 10 or 11, I could cook a full dinner for my family. It was just watching things on TV and remembering ‘this goes with this’….
When did you begin competing in cooking competitions?
That was the beginning of it. When I joined Queen’s in Year 7, it was the first time Food Tech was on the timetable in my school. I was overjoyed! I was doing cookery as part of the curriculum but as a boarder, you could do Cookery Club on a Saturday morning, so I started doing that too. My Food Tech teacher at the time, Mrs Mackie, suggested I could take part in cooking competitions. Year 7’s don’t usually do them but I was in the age category, so I did my first South West Chef that year and I got to the finals. I didn’t win and I was gutted, but I put on a brave face.
The following year, I did it again and I got to the finals – and won. I was overjoyed with that because I was being mentored by Liam Finnegan, he used to be the Head Chef at the Castle Hotel. I was going there until 10pm on a school night. He was very intense but in the best way. He really showed how passionate you can be about food, and I didn’t mind being up that late because I loved it. It was a buzzing kitchen, everyone was super lovely, I was learning loads.
Tell us about your food journey at Queen’s?
I continued to do Food Tech, and chose it as one of my GCSE options. I’m sure everyone in my Food Tech class absolutely hated me because I went over the top with everything. A lot of people see it as a filler subject but that was not the case for me. I found it quite scary because I was very academic when I was at school and I remember going to have my options meeting for A level. I was so terrified of telling everyone that I wanted to do Food Tech for A level. I was like, shall I just change it to Chemistry? My parents said “If you change it to Chemistry, we’re actually going to be really upset with you. You love this, you should do this”.
In Year 12, I heard there’s another category for Home Cook of the Year as part of South West Chef. I entered but I didn’t tell Mr Mann, I didn’t tell anyone. Then I came back a couple of weeks later and told him: ‘I did Home Cook’, and he was like ‘What?!’ I said the award ceremony is next week, so I’ll let you know how it goes. Mr Mann is quite close friends with Michael Caines who is one of the founders of the competition, and I’d seen Michael here and there for the competition since I was 12. At this point I was 17. At the awards ceremony he came up to me and I thought ‘this is the consolation moment, he’s coming up to be like ‘oh nice to see you’ because I haven’t won’, but instead told me that I had won – and I was really excited because I’d only submitted my recipe the night before the deadline. It was fish again, sole… A lot of my dishes are fish dishes; lots of people think it’s hard to cook so I feel really good when I cook it well.
Follow Munopa on instagram: @forksandfables_
Munopa Nhete (OQ 2023) is a Queen’s College Taunton alumna whose passion for food began in Food Technology at Queen’s Prep and Senior School. During her time at Queen’s she competed in South West Chef of the Year, trained with leading chefs and developed the culinary skills that later took her to the Masterchef semi finals. After leaving Queen’s College Sixth Form, Munopa launched her private dining business, Forks and Fables, and now caters for families across the South West and Cotswolds. Her story highlights the strength of Queen’s College’s Food Technology programme, the opportunities available within independent schools and the achievements of Queen’s alumni working in the culinary industry and creative food careers.