Celebrity MasterChef put five famous faces through a blindfolded taste-and-touch test on August 25. Giorgio Locatelli told them the challenge was about “the palate and the palate only,” and that single rule raised the cost of every guess.
Emily Steel said, “Oh, I’m scared,” as the blindfolds came out, while Donna Preston answered the setup with, “Get that blindfold on me, babes.” The episode paired nerves with a simple scoring rule: identify the mystery cube correctly, or lose the chance to stay in the challenge and fight for a significant advantage in the next round.
Locatelli’s blindfold rule
“Since this challenge is about the palate and the palate only, you will be doing this blindfolded,” Locatelli told the group. That stripped the test down to taste, texture and memory, which is exactly why a wrong answer carried immediate consequences inside the heats.
The challenge used mystery cubes of meat, fish, vegetables or fruit, and the contestants could not see what they were eating. The format turns a familiar cooking task into a fast elimination filter, because the person who misses the ingredient loses both the task and the extra advantage still on offer for the next round.
Tom Simons joins Celebrity MasterChef in second heat also placed another familiar name in the same episode, keeping the field at five and giving the round a broader mix of TV, comedy and performance backgrounds.
Eric Underwood’s beetroot call
Eric Underwood moved first with a guess that landed. While tasting the mystery food, he said, “It is kind of familiar but I’m not really sure,” then went on to answer, “Umm, beets… like a beetroot?” Grace Dent replied, “You are correct. You’re still in the game,” which kept him alive in the challenge.
Grace Dent also narrated the pace of the test as Underwood worked through a second bite, saying, “He’s going in for a second bite.” The exchange matters because the blindfold format leaves contestants with only a few sensory clues, so every extra mouthful becomes part of the decision-making rather than a luxury.
Shakira Khan wins Celebrity Masterchef challenge and gets pin shows how these episode-level rewards can stack up across the series, and this test is built around the same logic: a correct call preserves momentum, while a miss cuts it off early.
Donna Preston and Nitin Ganatra
Donna Preston also got hers right. She first said, “It’s hard. I’m thinking a fruit. Oh, my God, what is that?” before landing on “Cucumber!” and hearing Locatelli answer, “You are right.”
Nitin Ganatra was next to face a mystery ingredient after Preston, which kept the order of play moving and left the pressure unchanged for the remaining contestant. In a round like this, the sequence itself becomes part of the stakes: once the earlier guesses are in, each later contestant knows exactly how costly a mistake can be.
weekly quiz asks about Celebrity Masterchef judges complaint reflects how much attention the judges and their calls are drawing around the series, but the cleaner read here is simple: the blindfold test rewards fast sensory judgment, and the advantage in the next round now sits with whoever can keep their nerve under it.
