Celebrity chefs Manu Feildel and Colin Fassnidge are no strangers to long days and big personalities but their latest TV adventure takes things to an entirely new level: cramped quarters, campfires, and campervans. They spoke to Aziz Al Sa’afin about their next big project exploring the land of the long white cloud.
The pair – known for their judging duties on Australian cooking competition show My Kitchen Rules – have traded in white tablecloths for winding roads in their new TVNZ series Off The Grid. It’s part road trip, part bromantic experiment, and part endurance test.
“We said, you know, MKR is amazing, but we want to do something for ourselves,” Feildel told Seven Sharp. “We saw this little caravan in the back of someone’s garden and we took a photo of it. We said, ‘let’s travel around the country in that type of caravan’ and voilà, we’ve done it.”
But what sounded like a dream trip quickly became a test of patience, plumbing and friendship.
“On paper it all works. But after a few days, we start to neglect a lot. But I think that’s all part the beauty of the show. It’s not all rainbows and happy,” joked Fassnidge.
Instead of judging contestants, they’re judging pit stops, navigating the full length of the country, from Coromandel to Wānaka. And they’re doing it the old-fashioned way: on four wheels, with no script, no reservations, and definitely no personal chef.
“There’s so much to offer in such a small country,” Feildel said. “It’s like you’ve got a remote control watching TV and you keep switching these channels and that’s gorgeous.”
A taste of New Zealand
Naturally, food is never far from the conversation or the campervan.
From hāngī to home baking, Feildel and Fassnidge said they were especially struck by the richness of Māori cuisine.
“We thought the French invented confit duck,” Feildel quipped. “I think the Māori have been confiting duck for years.”
Fassnidge added: “The beauty is, you never stop learning.”
And it’s not just new cuisines, he said, referring to when the pair were invited onto a marae and gifted a piece of sacred pounamu.
“The chief gave us this huge greenstone from the river,” Manu explained. “We carved it ourselves. It hasn’t left our necks since.”
Those heartfelt moments are balanced with a fair bit of silliness and and entertainment, too.
Whether they’re bickering over breakfast, bantering in the bush, or bonding over breathtaking landscapes, Off The Grid promises to offer a raw and hilarious look at two friends well and truly out of their comfort zones in a world of “misadventures”.
Off The Grid premieres tonight at 7.30pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+
