Mar Orozco (38) has met success in a sweet way. This private chef, entrepreneur and trainer had her professional profile posted on a kitchen platform. "The truth is that I was not very attentive to what was coming to me." Through that channel Miki Nadal began to send him messages, but given the little success he had, he chose to write it on his Instagram channel. The host and comedian was going to participate in MasterChef Celebrity and wanted her to prepare him before starting the show.

He accepted the challenge immediately. "I love to test myself. I knew the format well and also watched the program," she says excitedly. And they won the contest -together with journalist Juanma Castaño-, the first to be broadcast in the post-pandemic era. "I knew since June that Miki was the winner and until November I couldn't say anything." Her discretion takes her to gala. "I am a tomb." You already know who is the winner of the one that is issued now and does not release garment. "It doesn't cost me anything to be quiet."

The next to knock on his door was the 'showoman' Lorena Castell. "She called me just a week before the culinary talent started." Discreet when talking about her students, it is difficult to get any juicy comparison. "Lorena was the one who arrived greenest and almost the fastest learning any trick. It improved a lot from a creative point of view." Miki Nadal gave him some more leeway. "I started with him a month before the program. On a technical level it was the one that grew the most." On average she cooked with him three hours a day, "sometimes 4", in which they prepared elaborations of all kinds and even went to the market to "see and explain product. We were exhausted."

The first session with any of his students consists of "seeing if they are afraid of cooking, how they move, the level of knowledge, the profile ...". Not everyone starts from the same point. "Lorena was the queen of tupperware, she subsisted on what her mother made for her." In addition to this previous training, the chef accompanies the contestants throughout the program. "It is a constant training, from the posture they have to have to how to use the utensils"

"I'm a super proponent of the format. The contestants have a hard time and try hard." Seeing the program from the inside has also allowed him to refine the training of his pupils. "It's a very demanding pace." He has a hard time when he sees them "suffering" in the tests. "The fundamental thing is to gain confidence in oneself and know how to get out of complicated situations... When they are cut with knives I get very nervous."

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After winning the seventh edition with Lorena Castell, Mar the offers have not stopped coming; in this edition the rider Álvaro Muñoz Escassi and the actor Miguel Diosdado have asked for help. "In this case, the two were at the same level. The first had cooked something and the second had taken some class. Maybe Miguel had the technical part better." It does not release anything that is going to happen in the edition that began a few days ago.

Before cooking, Mar worked in the world of advertising and marketing. "I've been cooking since I was little. It is something deeply rooted at the family level; We have always seen the table as a place of union." In 2016 he decided to give a change of direction to his life and bet on what he really liked. He enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and did an internship with the Torres brothers in their restaurant in Madrid, and in the Bacus restaurant in Almería.

After these two experiences, he took his own path, that of being a chef at home, which really pulled him. He admires Dabiz Muñoz, "because he is out of series"; Pepa Muñoz (El cuenco de Pepa) "for the care she puts into everything" and José Andrés "for his humanitarian work". He prefers not to make long-term plans and enjoy the present. "I don't know where I see myself in five years."