After leaving at his peak, Kosta Osadchy returns to "MasterChef"

Kosta Osadchy was one of the prominent contestants of the eighth season of MasterChef. After impressing the judges and receiving a golden apron, he decided to quit the competition when his wife went into labor. Now he is returning to cook in the country's hottest kitchen on MasterChef: Dream Team, and he wants to continue exactly at the point where he stopped last time (new episode tonight, Monday, after the news, Channel 12).

"In my season I wasn't eliminated, I left on my own. They called from the hospital that my wife was giving birth, I got up and went to the hospital," he recalled in an interview with +12. "They called me now and asked if I wanted to come back, and I felt like I was halfway there. I decided to go for it, I came to enjoy it. If it takes me where it needs to take me, that's good."

When asked how far he thinks the show can take him, Osadchy replied: "I will do the best I can, I don't want to make promises to myself. I came to enjoy it and I know that in such a way one can go very far. All in all, I do what I love. If I didn't love my work, I wouldn't have come."

Will he be ready to help other contestants? "Helping, one hundred percent. Even if it brings me down, I help. I come to do my part in the best way, not to show that I am better than someone else. The competition is with myself."

Osadchy admitted that he often returned to the question: "What would have happened if I hadn't quit?". He felt that he was doing great at the time. "I felt that there was a chance I would reach the final, and I left like the big ones, at the very peak. It leaves me in a good place. But I think that the transformation from almost a MasterChef finalist to a father put it a bit aside," he said.

In the interview, Osadchy shared that he and his family live in Cyprus, which was a significant factor in the hesitation about returning to the show. "We left for Cyprus, and there was a question of how we would do it with the logistics of flights and filming. One evening, at eleven at night, the decisive message arrived from my wife: 'You only live once'."

The full interview with Kosta Osadchy is available to watch now on +12

Osadchy, who during his season let us into his kitchen in Sderot where he lived until October 7, also shared the difficult decision to move. "The thought started on October 7, and on October 10 we landed in Paphos and haven't returned until now. On that difficult day, we understood that it wasn't just another 'Red Alert', that it was something serious. On October 8, I already saw four packed suitcases and understood that we weren't going to friends in the north. In the meantime, we are there, the children are smiling and that is what interests me the most right now," he admitted.

What place does cooking fill in his life? "Food never left me, I always cook, even at home for the children. It so happened that every time I started doing something, something happened. After our season I started doing workshops, until it stopped because of Corona. When I started thinking again about some food truck, October 7 came. Now two more years have passed that I am in Cyprus, and I have been looking for a restaurant. Let's see what happens in the world. Now the aliens might arrive."

Which season of MasterChef is the best in your opinion? "I must say and boast that our season, the eighth, was crazy. Also the last season was at a very high level. I think that all the time we sat at home during Corona brought us to some level-up in cooking because there was time."

Because he lacks professional experience, Osadchy admitted that the thought "What am I doing here?" crossed his mind, but also that this thought passed. "Everyone knows what they know how to do, but no one knows what I have learned to do in the last six years," he said. "It's a competition but in the end, we care about food and a smile for people."

Interviewer: Noa Barkai