When an Australian gets mobbed in India, you think he’s got to be a cricketer. And if he’s not, you may rest assured that he’s a chef. Indeed, chefs-cum-television hosts Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris have been swarmed by crowds in India seeking their autographs.

“We have been absolutely overwhelmed. We never imagined that so many people watched our show,” says Mehigan, as he and Calombaris pull their chairs placed next to a huge mahogany table for a comfortable chat in the wood-panelled conference room of a five-star hotel in Delhi.

The two are hosts of the immensely popular programme MasterChef Australia. The celebrity chefs have garnered such fans that one of their counterparts in India, a judge on MasterChef India, jokingly complained to them about their hold over Indian audiences. “He said that the biggest problem they faced was that the audiences here often compared their show with ours,” says Mehigan, breaking into a smile.

That’s not surprising if you look at the reception the two Australians got during their recent trip to India. They were mobbed by children and housewives alike, from Dharavi in Mumbai to Chandni Chowk in Delhi to the Australian High Commission in the capital, with everybody calling them by their first names.

Both are stocky, with paunches and make no effort to hide their girths. There is an air of warmth and geniality about them, with a touch of machismo, given their sizes and deep voices. While Mehigan, 45, is wearing an informal dark green checked shirt untucked over jeans, Calombaris, 33, is in a tight blue and yellow Australian football team jersey. Mehigan’s hair is spiked. Calombaris has no such luck — he is completely bald.

The two are celebrity chefs Down Under too. “We have been really pleased to hear that the Indian audiences have reacted exactly the same way as Australian audiences. When we started the show four years ago, what separated us from other reality shows was that we were supportive, we were not mean, we mentored people, we gave positive feedback and it was all about food,” says Mehigan.

The show’s format is fairly simple. A select group of amateur cooks ranging from a barber to a company executive cooks anything from a gourmet burger and Indian chicken curry to smoked river trout and mussels, turmeric and lemongrass broth. Every week, a contestant is eliminated till the last contestant emerges as the winner at the end of the show.

The three judges — the panel includes food critic Matt Preston — are sympathetic and often seen calming the nerves of a contestant whose dish has gone terribly haywire by dropping a few hints on ways to resurrect it. They seldom have negative comments to make — unless, of course, the dish is really, really bad.

The show, Mehigan says with a note of pride in his voice, doesn’t just enjoy the highest TV rating for any show in Australian history, it is also a platform for would-be chefs. Calombaris nods and provides an interesting statistic. “Of all the 70 or so contestants over four seasons, only five are not into cooking today,” he says. Five contestants have opened their own restaurants and one of the winners wrote a book that sold a whopping 2.5 lakh copies.

Why has the Indian version of the show failed to catch the imagination of audiences? Is there something wrong with the food? Or is it the presentation and the plating? Mehigan cuts me off. “Everybody we met in India has said that, and I don’t agree. Everything I have eaten and seen so far has been amazing. I think it is only Indians who think that the food here doesn’t look that great. But that’s not true,” he says.

Mehigan has eaten all kinds of Indian dishes, but his favourites are Mumbai’s sev puri and paani puri. “They were simply great,” he says, comparing the two popular street food dishes with tapas — various kinds of Spanish snacks. “But what we had in Mumbai were tapas exemplified,” he adds making a hand gesture connecting his index finger and the thumb indicating that it was top class.

“Food is all about the experience and the environment,” he says. “You need to give people the right surroundings to experience the food.”

Good food has always been a part of Mehigan’s life. During his formative years on Hayling Island on the south coast of England, he was hugely influenced by his grandfather who was also a chef. “He would make everything so interesting. Even the cabbage he prepared was so flavoursome! He would tell my mother that I ate cabbage and she would be surprised,” he says.

He himself thought of many careers in his childhood before settling on becoming a chef. “I thought of everything — from following in my engineer father’s footsteps to becoming a firefighter, a fighter pilot and an architect. But I was around 15 when I decided that this was what I wanted to do,” he says.

He went on to study to be a chef at Highbury College, Portsmouth, England. After completing his degree, Mehigan did apprenticeship in many London restaurants such as The Connaught and Le Souffle. But Mehigan soon left England for Australia, and worked in some of the best restaurants in Melbourne before he opened his own — called Fenix — at the age of 31. His other famous restaurant is the Maribyrnong Boathouse in Melbourne.

Mehigan was a television star even before he became a judge on MasterChef with quite a few assignments. He continues to do other shows too. But nothing, he stresses, gives him more satisfaction than being on MasterChef along with Calombaris, who worked under him almost a decade ago, and Preston.

“We have a great time together,” says Mehigan, “About 95 per cent of the time, we agree. Good food is not that subjective; it is quite objective,” he adds.

They don’t agree all the time though — and Mehigan blames Preston for that. “Ever so often, Matt gets a bee in his bonnet. He will always let one of us go first to taste the dish,” he says. “Always,” adds Calombaris, stressing every syllable. “And when we both agree on a dish, he would go completely the opposite way, driving us crazy. At times I feel that he does it on purpose to see our reaction,” Mehigan says.

While Mehigan’s background as an Englishman makes him an easy target for jokes by Calombaris, the latter’s Greek ancestry comes in for flak from Mehigan with Preston joining in the fun. “We joke about each other a lot. We say stuff about each other all the time,” says Mehigan.

It is pretty much on display right now, as Calombaris ribs Mehigan when the latter struggles to explain the meaning of the aboriginal Maribyrnong — his restaurant’s name. “Oh Gosh, this is so embarrassing,” says Calombaris, rolling his eyes.

But there is no doubting their bonhomie. The two have also written a book together called Your Place or Mine. Mehigan’s other books include Comfort Food and Cook with Us.

The two agree that their families had to pay a price for their super-stardom. “I can no longer have a quiet walk with my family on the beach. There will be somebody who likes the show and has some nice things to say, or somebody wants an autograph. But I guess both our families are okay with that,” says Mehigan, who lives with his wife, Mandy, and daughter, Jenna, in Melbourne.

Mehigan adds that he has been raving about India to his wife over the phone and hopes to bring her on a holiday here. “I see people everywhere. I think we will go to a quiet place and taste the best of India,” he says. There is little chance, though, that he is not going to be mobbed even at a “quiet place” in India. I tell him that — leaving him to chew on it.