The Masterchef Final Is on Wednesday at 8 P.M. That’s It. That’s the Story

This year’s Masterchef final will air on BBC One at 8 p.m. on Wednesday 14 April, having being rescheduled after the death of Prince Philip on Friday 9 April.

This year’s finalists — Mike Tomkins, Alexina Anatole and Tom Rhodes — had to wait to feign surprise at what they already know after wall-to-wall coverage of the death of the Duke Edinburgh on the BBC postponed the final. This year’s Masterchef, which has been subject to its normal judging foibles, deconstructed crumbles, and now Covid-19 restrictions, visited three London restaurants along the way: Jonny Lake and Isa Bal’s Trivet, in Bermondsey; The Game Bird at the Stafford Hotel, overseen by Ben Tish; and two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche in Mayfair, whose chef-patron Michel Roux Jr. is a regular judge on Masterchef: The Professionals.

Unlike that series, this year’s Masterchef hasn’t really rolled with Covid-19’s impact on restaurants or the formal possibilities that it has engendered — aside from one dinner featuring “lockdown heroes,” including Community Comfort author and Eater London contributor Riaz Phillips and Black Book co-founder, chef, and food writer Zoe Adjonyoh. But now the final awaits — along with hope that next year it might have more freedom to genuinely evolve.