MasterChef: Reynold Poernomo pays tribute to ‘hero that fought to keep his family in Australia’

MasterChef’s Reynold Poernomo has thanked the ‘hero that fought to keep his family in Australia’ when he was a child and immigration threatened to deport them. 

The 26-year-old emigrated to Australia from Indonesia when he was four, admitting during Wednesday’s episode of the show that his ‘parents were taken away for a while’ during his childhood and then forced to close their family restaurant. 

‘Here’s one to you mum, dad, my brothers and my aunty. And of course you know who you are, the hero that fought to keep us in Australia and now we are proud to call Australia home,’ Reynold wrote Instagram after the episode aired.    

During Wednesday’s emotional challenge, Reynold cried reflecting on his difficult childhood after being presented with a picture of himself as a young boy.

The stars were challenged to make a dish inspired by their early memories. In Reynold’s image, he was seen sitting in the store room of his parent’s restaurant. 

‘The photo there, it’s me sitting on a massive container of detergent with a chocolate milkshake. I’d go to school myself. I’d come home by myself. I’d go to the restaurant just to see my parents work late at night,’ he said of the picture.

‘There was, like, a little kind of bed thingy [in the back of their restaurant], and I’d just sit there and sleep until they finished service, which was really late at night.’

Reynold started to cry as he delved further into his emotional past. 

‘People think that I’d be learning a lot of stuff from my mum or my dad, but actually they’d be working so hard in the restaurant, and those times were quite tough,’ he explained, as he began to tear up. 

‘I remember immigration getting my parents taken away for a little bit. The restaurant closed down, of course. My brother was getting food for me when I was hungry.’

The family arrived in Australia in 1997. His parents started their first restaurant in their garage with just $300, according to podcast Giant Thinkers. 

After Reynold’s parents were ‘taken away for a while’ when he was a child, the family were later reunited and able to remain in Australia. Since then, they have founded multiple eateries, including KOI Dessert Bar & Dining and Monkey’s Corner.

Reynold admitted on Wednesday that having to close all of their venues due to the coronavirus pandemic has brought back his emotional childhood memories. 

‘I’m not sure when we’re going to open again. In a way, my family is a little bit jobless at the moment. Yeah, we’re struggling through this again,’ he said.

‘And that picture just really hit home. It’s crazy out there at the moment. It’s more the reason now that I need to make my time here in the MasterChef kitchen worth it.

‘Just you can never really predict what happens in business and in life in general. We’re going through struggles now. We went through struggles then.’