Gregg Wallace facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gregg Wallace
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Wallace judging at MasterChef Live in 2010
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Gregg Allan Wallace
17 October 1964 Peckham, London, England
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| Years active | 2002– |
| Employer | BBC |
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| Children | 3 |
Gregg Allan Wallace MBE (born 17 October 1964) is an English broadcaster, entrepreneur and writer. He is known for co-presenting MasterChef, Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals on BBC One and BBC Two. He has written for Good Food, Now and Olive. Wallace left MasterChef in 2024.
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Early life and business career
Gregg Allan Wallace was born on 17 October 1964 in Peckham, South London. He left school at 15 and started work as a warehouseman at Covent Garden Fruit and Veg Market. He sold vegetables at a stand in Covent Garden, before becoming a salesman. He was later told that setting up a business might be a good idea. In 1989, he started George Allan's Greengrocers, a company that built up to an eventual turnover of £7.5 million. In 2010, Wallace opened the restaurant Wallace & Co in the London district of Putney, where he served as one of the directors.
In 2012, he opened Gregg's Bar & Grill in a joint venture with the Bermondsey Square Hotel in Bermondsey Square. In August 2013, it was reported that one of Wallace's companies, West Veg Limited, had folded, owing more than £500,000. In 2014, both of his restaurants folded, with Wallace & Co owing suppliers £150,000.
Broadcasting career
Wallace was invited to co-present Veg Talk on BBC Radio 4 with Charlie Hicks. The programme aired for seven years; Andy Kershaw described it as being "delivered with this fake, barrow-boy bonhomie."
Wallace was the original presenter of Saturday Kitchen from 2002 until being replaced by Antony Worrall Thompson in 2003. Wallace also presented Veg Out for the Discovery Channel, and Follow That Tomato for The Food Channel, resulting in a Royal Television Society award for Best Lifestyle Programme in 2003.
In 2008 and 2009, Wallace presented two editions of The Money Programme on the effect that the financial crisis was having on the public's attitudes towards food. In August 2013, Wallace presented Supermarket Secrets, a BBC One programme about supermarket food sourcing and distribution, and in September 2013, he co-presented Harvest 2013, a three-part documentary following the progress of Britain's vegetable, cereal and fruit harvests.
In 2013, Wallace started to co-present Eat Well for Less? alongside Chris Bavin for BBC One, and from 2015 until 2023 he co-presented Inside the Factory, alongside Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman for BBC Two. In 2016, Wallace was the presenter of a revived series of the BBC historical game show Time Commanders.
In December 2019, Wallace presented a Channel 5 documentary called Gregg Wallace's Magical Christmas Market, filmed in Vienna, Austria. In April 2020, Channel 5 scheduled a follow-up series called Gregg Wallace's Fun Weekends, but it was pulled because it featured cities badly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The four-part travel series was finally transmitted in February 2021 as Big Weekends with Gregg Wallace (also known as Gregg Wallace: Big Weekends Away) with the first episode being about Barcelona.
In February 2021, Wallace presented a six-part ITV series called South Africa with Gregg Wallace. In the series, he visited sites such as Isandlwana, the Augrabies Falls, Durban and the Orange River. In this month it was reported that Kimberley Walsh was likely to replace Wallace as presenter of Eat Well For Less, after Wallace left the show after eight years.
In December 2021, Wallace presented two Channel 5 Christmas specials: Gregg Wallace's Grand Christmas Adventure and Gregg Wallace's Magical Christmas Market. In July 2023, Wallace presented Gregg Wallace: The British Miracle Meat, a mockumentary which depicted a British company that had developed food technology to produce genetically engineered human meat.
MasterChef
Between 2005 and 2024, Wallace was co-presenter and judge of BBC cooking show MasterChef, with John Torode. In December 2024 Wallace was replaced by the food critic Grace Dent. In March 2018, Wallace declined to judge Zaleha Kadir Olpin's dish on MasterChef, stating that the stewed chicken rendang dish was "not crispy enough and could not be eaten". This remark caused a media and public backlash in some prominent members of the ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei, who said that rendang is a "stewed, soft and tender dish: not intended to be crispy".
Guest appearances
In 2007, Wallace appeared in the BBC singing contest Just the Two of Us where he partnered with professional singer Carol Decker. The duo were the first to be eliminated. In 2010, Wallace appeared in the BBC One series Turn Back Time: The High Street with Tom Herbert and Juliet Gardiner. On 27 January 2012, Wallace appeared in an episode of Room 101 on BBC One. In August 2012, Wallace was the subject of an episode of the BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?
Wallace appeared as a guest panellist on the BBC Two programme An Extra Slice In 2014, a contestant in Series 7 of the ITV quiz show The Chase Celebrity Special in 2017, a contestant on Celebrity Catchphrase in 2019, a contestant on the sixth series of Tipping Point: Lucky Stars in 2020, a contestant on the third series of The Chase spin off, Beat the Chasers in 2021, and a celebrity expert on the 2021 Christmas special of The Wheel.
In September 2014 Wallace was a contestant on the twelfth series of BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with professional Aliona Vilani. In the first week Wallace danced a Cha-cha-cha to Katy Perry's "Hot n Cold". During the judges' comments, Wallace joked about the lack of success shown by Craig Revel Horwood in a previous series of Celebrity Masterchef. He left the show in the second week, after the first public vote, when the Waltz danced by Jennifer Gibney and Tristan MacManus was preferred by the judges to Vilani and Wallace's Charleston.
Personal life
Wallace married his first wife, Christine, in 1991 but their marriage only lasted six weeks. He has two children with his second wife, former pastry chef Denise Lovell, whom he was married to between 1999 and 2004. Wallace later married biology teacher Heidi Brown, in 2010, his third wife who was 17 years his junior, after meeting her on Twitter. The relationship ended after 15 months.
Wallace met Anne-Marie Sterpini, 21 years his junior, also on Twitter, in 2013 and they married in August 2016. Masterchef co-host John Torode served as best man at the wedding at Hever Castle, Kent. Sterpini gave birth to their first child in 2019. Wallace publicly expressed his fears of being an "old parent" but said that he was considering having more children. Wallace's son was diagnosed with autism in 2022. In February 2024, Wallace told the Telegraph that having another child "isn't something that I would have chosen at my age", but did so to please his wife.
Wallace was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to food and charity. Wallace has a tattoo of Millwall on his chest. He has supported the club since childhood and took part in football hooliganism in his youth. At one time Wallace was a rugby coach for an under-15's side in Liverpool.
