Do we like Curtis Stone?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean harm record and real charity work, held back by one denied nanny dispute and a thin public record on the big issues.
Curtis Stone is the Aussie chef who took his cooking to Los Angeles and made a name there. He ran the Maude restaurant in LA, and by 2022 he owned three restaurants in the US. He's been a fixture on telly for years, so most of us know him as the friendly bloke with the knife skills.
The latest news is a lighter one. He turned up as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia in 2026, and contestants Hannah and Pat said he was supportive and generous with advice, though Pat said he's decisive when he calls a spade a spade. Nothing scandalous there, just a chef doing what chefs on telly do.
The messiest thing on his file is a nanny dispute. In 2023 a former nanny, Melissa Talley, alleged in a lawsuit that he treated her maliciously and harassed her when she raised pay concerns. He denies all of it, and his lawyers said his actions were business decisions made for legitimate reasons. Reports so far come from magazine and tabloid territory, and we couldn't find an outcome, with one report saying the matter went to arbitration.
Another stain, though a small one, came in 2022, when he defended James Corden after restaurateur Keith McNally accused Corden of abusing staff at a New York restaurant. Stone called Corden an “absolute gentleman” and said he'd “always been a lovely guest” at his own places. It's one friend vouching for another, but it shows he picked his side before hearing the staff's.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty. Nothing we read had him saying anything about trans people, women, migrants or the planet, good or bad, and no dodgy co-stars or studios came up. That's a pass, but a thin one, because the record is mostly food and telly rather than politics.
The good stuff is real. He runs a yearly #Commit2One drive, backing one charity at a time, including the National Young Farmers Coalition, Chrysalis (which helps homeless and disadvantaged people find work), AdoptTogether and No Kid Hungry. In 2020 he pledged all profits from a South Australia menu at Maude to Drought Angels, which helps drought-hit farmers.