“I don’t cook meat in my everyday life.”

My Kitchen Rules (MKR) 2025 contestants Jacinta and Mel have been at the centre of many heated discussions, mostly due to their outspoken nature and Jacinta’s restrictive plant-based diet. While contestants were expecting a full vegetarian meal at their Instant Restaurant, the feisty cousins shook things up by serving a meat-heavy braised beef with black rice, lime and corn salad with coconut roti.

Jacinta tells Chattr she believes the contestants and viewers would likely have been “surprised” by their meat-heavy dish, but it’s a dish Mel personally loves to cook and eat.

“I don’t cook meat in my everyday life, so when Mel and I, the way we cook together is Mel would do her portion if she wanted to eat meat, only for the reason [that] I like to taste as I cook,” Jacinta says.

“But the dish that we made, Mel loves. So it just makes sense… we’re a team, and she loves to eat that, so it’s not like we [did] it to cause any more drama, obviously.”

Jacinta tells us she wished they had plated up a different dish, but from what Chattr understands, contestants put forward different recipe options, and producers have the final say.

“[Everybody would have been] surprised with what was chosen for the first meal. There were other meals that Mel and I would have rather cooked, because we had some pretty exciting plant-based sort of dishes,” Jacinta explains.

Mel and Jacinta knew there would be quite a reaction at the dinner table when the guests realised they were being served braised beef, with the self-proclaimed meat master, Michael, judging them heavily.

“They [would have been] a bit shocked with that, just because obviously it’s been quite the big talk around the table that because [Jacinta doesn’t eat] meat, so for us to then serve up our main dish to be a meat-heavy component… it’ll definitely [have] set some tongues wagging around the table,” Mel adds.
Jacinta and Mel serving the judges at their Instant Restaurant. Image: Seven

What went wrong with Mel and Jacinta’s Instant Restaurant?

In the end, it wasn’t just Mel and Jacinta’s burnt meat dish that let them down — the MKR judges and other contestants also gave their tofu mocha mousse with coffee liqueur and coconut sauce a thumbs-down.

At one point, Manu Feildel placed his spoon into the glass and then waved the entire dessert around in the air to show how solid it was. Michael and Rielli declared they didn’t like the dessert, while Lil couldn’t contain her glee in seeing her competition fail at the final hurdle.

In the end, Mel and Jacinta scored a lowly 50 for their Instant Restaurant, compared to Lil and Lol’s 64, and they were sent packing.