Courtesy of MasterChef Australia
The Filipino pâtissier challenges contestants to recreate a difficult dessert in the season’s last showdown.
Making his mark in Australia, Filipino pastry chef Miko Aspiras has been announced as the headlining guest judge for MasterChef Australia’s season 17 finale, where contestants will attempt to replicate one of his signature confections in the sweetest showdown yet.
On August 12, Aspiras takes center stage on what is typically the season’s most-watched episode, showing his work to a wide Australian audience while representing Filipino culinary talent on an international stage.
The show’s production team discovered Aspiras through his Instagram account, where the chef has been showcasing his dessert creations over the years. “I didn’t audition for it, and I didn’t really have to go through a vetting process,” the now Sydney-based chef recounts. “Although I’ve been working here for almost six years, I haven’t had a big break like this. It was such a huge opportunity, and they seemed like they knew my work, which was such an amazing feeling.”
Produced in over 60 countries and broadcast in over 200 territories, the delicious appeal of MasterChef is one of wide global reach. On MasterChef Australia, which airs on Channel 10 in Australia and the show’s official YouTube channel, amateur cooks compete in high-stakes cooking challenges every week, from Mystery Box tests and invention challenges to intense service rounds and pressure tests. The binge-worthy show features dramatic eliminations, special globetrotting episodes, as well as appearances from renowned guest chefs like Gordon Ramsay (who judged this season’s first episode’s challenge), Peter Gilmore, Maggie Beer, and Curtis Stone, among others.
This year’s all-star “Back to Win” season brings back 24 contestants from seasons 1 through 16 vying once more for the AU$250,000 prize. The theme gives fan favorites a second, or even a third, chance at redemption. Meanwhile, the judging panel consists of four established palates, Andy Allen (Series 4 winner), Poh Ling Yeow (Series 1 runner-up and longtime judge), Jean-Christophe Novelli, and food critic and writer, Sofia Levin. Think 60 episodes of cooking par excellence with seasoned judges, standout guest chefs, as well as returning contestants with something to prove, layered with riveting personal storytelling that builds emotional arcs throughout the season.
When the invitation came, Aspiras was simultaneously taken aback and thrilled at the golden opportunity. Formerly the executive pastry chef of Oborozuki, a Japanese-French fine-dining restaurant that overlooks the Sydney Opera House, he still thought he was a relative unknown in Australia. After an April meeting in Melbourne, where the MasterChef studio and broadcast center is located, he found out that the team had been following his work online. “They were showing me my work from six, seven, and even eight years back,” he says, “but in the end, they highlighted a couple of desserts that they thought were really something interesting.” When asked if he had a signature to recreate or if he wanted to produce something from scratch, there was one dessert that Aspiras felt best represented his skills and style: the Botanical Garden, a dessert that was both a showstopper yet also a practical challenge to reproduce.
Aspiras and the production team worked on the dessert and the challenge for more than a month, and on his fifth trip out to Melbourne, they filmed the episode with two finalists battling it out. Throughout the exhilarating blur of filming on set, there was one moment that left Aspiras speechless: his big introduction to the audience. “They [the hosts] even asked me, ‘Is Miko famous? Are you famous in Asia?’ But then Sofia [Levin]’ answered, ‘Miko is literally the Beyoncé of pastry!’” It was beyond anything he had expected.
The pitch of Aspiras’ finale show piece is a fully edible potted plant focused on putting native Australian ingredients forward, with a touch of endemic Philippine flavors. Served as a high tea-style petit four dessert, the hand-carved white chocolate pot is filled with cocoa nibs, pebble stone profiteroles, raspberry ganache flowers, aloe gel-filled chocolate leaves, wattleseed tuile leaves with pili nut butter, surrounded by coastal plants and fresh herbs.
Notably, Aspiras included two Philippine ingredients in his recipe: pili nut and calamansi. Given Australia’s rigid restrictions on bringing in fruit and produce, how did he work around this? “Calamansi actually grows here!” he says. “As for the five kilos of pili I brought back to Australia from the Philippines in April, they were candied. Though at the time, I didn’t know they’d be put to good use.”
Finalists were given four and a half hours to recreate the dessert, relying on a single viewing and tasting. “There wasn’t much room for them to get creative,” he laughs. “They asked me all the questions they could think of in that moment, and they just had to try to remember what it looked like. Ingredients were, of course, provided to them—but not to measure—so that was part of the challenge. I also provided the pot to give them a good head start.”
Aspiras was impressed with how close the final two got to the original. “For them to remember the colors, the arrangement…yes, there was a specific recipe that they had to follow, but this was essentially blind baking,” he says. During the reveal, one of the contestants fell to their knees, yelling expletives. “I was like, ‘I’m so sorry it’s so difficult!’ I think that says it all.”
Aspiras began his culinary journey in Manila, starting as a commis chef at the Shangri-La and rising through top establishments like Raffles, Fairmont, and Resorts World. He earned multiple international culinary awards and recognitions from magazines. His cookbook A Piece of Cake, coauthored with Aileen Anastacio, presents 50 dessert concepts, each interpreted in two distinct styles: one classic and approachable, and the other inventive and avant-garde.
Moving to Australia in 2019 was a decision driven as much by personal commitment as professional ambition. Aspiras served as executive pastry chef at the Hilton Sydney, where his Basque burnt cheesecake sold out in a day. Though the pandemic led to team layoffs, he rebounded in June 2021 by co-founding Don’t Doughnuts in Darlinghurst.
Aussies have been more than receptive to Aspiras’ inventive flair with his sought-after sourdough brioche doughnuts filled with Basque cheesecake and topped with torched brûlée, or the vanilla-opposed flavors like Vegemite butterscotch, Iranian pistachio, and matcha sesame cream.
Lending his concept-driven vision to several brands, he remains active in both Sydney’s and Manila’s F&B scenes. He is currently launching three projects this year and in 2025 through the Illoura Hospitality Group: EUCA, a gelato shop which will open in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building; Pages Café Sydney, a library and café concept; and an as-yet unrevealed fine dining restaurant in Parramatta. Though he will focus on Australian native ingredients, he says he’ll “grab any chance to sprinkle amazing Filipino ingredients wherever I can.”
From MasterChef Australia’s grand finale to all the developments in the pipeline, the clichéd success question begs to be asked. “I’ve achieved more than I wanted to achieve. I feel like I’m a fully realized entrepreneur and pastry chef now. More so now than when I was in the Philippines,” he shares. Still, he prefers not to go on about himself. “I just let my work talk on my behalf.”
