Laura Londoo (Medellín, Colombia 1988) is the winner of MasterChef Celebrity 8. The great favorite has not disappointed. She became known in Spain for her character as Seagull in Café con Aroma de Mujer and has dedicated herself to seeing day by day how her participation in the kitchen has been. She left everything in Colombia to come to Spain with her husband Santiago and her two daughters. Cheerful, generous, optimistic, competitive, very hard-working. An example as a woman. And a name that will continue to give a lot to talk about, always for the best.
-The first thing he said after receiving the award was: I came to look for the gold medal and I found him looking at the trophy. What a well-chosen metaphor!
-It’s poetic, since we mentioned it, imagine. It is very cute.
-Why did you accept MasterChef Celebrity?
-They called me and invited me. They told me it was in Spain and I love Spain and it was in Madrid and that meant like a family adventure to come to a city where I feel it is very nice to be with family. I have always seen Madrid as a city to have children. Besides, this was a game and I like to play, I like to challenge myself. It was like the perfect package. And if you add to that that I am a brave person who is half crazy and ignorant, I didn’t know what I was getting into and I very happily said yes.
I considered throwing in the towel a couple of times.
-And have you regretted that yes?
-Nooo, I’m happy. After knowing the level of commitment that my word means to me, I began to look at last year’s edition as a study, as a way of understanding, and then I said to myself: What have I gotten myself into? And that was when I started studying tremendously as if I had taken a sabbatical to learn how to cook, but also at this level that Spain demands, which is very high and that MasterChef demands. It has been a tremendous journey, a wonderful journey. I wasn’t going to imagine it was going to be so hard, but it’s so satisfying, it’s so nice. You can do things that you swore were impossible, and that gives you that drive to want to continue despite the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion just in case. , the fears, the fears So many times that you see the risk and falling into the abyss and you say to yourself, I’d better go now, but there was already so much at risk, so much at stake, so much sacrifice, so much fact that I didn’t allow myself to throw in the towel, even though I considered it a couple of times, but we have to move on.
-Everything went smoothly for you. You sweep Spain with Coffee with the Scent of a Woman playing Seagull, now you win MasterChef Celebrity by making the real Laura known: hard-working, committed, companion Don’t you think that destiny is putting Spain on your way?
-It is true that I believe a lot in listening to that dialogue with life, life is giving you signs, it is talking to you, it is telling you. Right now I feel that everything I have done is very nice, what was in my hands I have done with all the love in the world. In addition, I will tell you more signs: I have a Spanish passport because my maternal grandmother is Spanish and she found out very recently. It coincides with this journey and discovering myself from a place that makes me vibrate that is in my blood and genes. I’m glad to have this opportunity. You see, life weaves its wonderful web to put you in the place you should be at the perfect moment. I am happy and delighted and really enjoying being here. I see my daughters happy. It has been very nice, Spain is a country that I love and I am very grateful for the way she has received me, with open arms, with so much affection she has welcomed me.
I have had 20 chefs to teach me
-All the contestants have rehearsed before entering the contest with chefs and in restaurants, what did you do?
-I have had 20 cooks, 20! The degree of study that I have invested in it is not normal. Before traveling to Madrid, two months before, I started working shifts in a restaurant where I was from 8 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon and I went into a kitchen that they allowed me to enter to study. I had several teachers: one was a pastry teacher. In Spain he visited four restaurants and four more teachers. In the air I looked calm, but the reality is that I was making a tremendous effort, I came home and suffered a lot and cried and vented, something I never did in front of the cameras, I never broke down, I never allowed myself to show that fragility that I was feeling, but that I went and compensated for it with those hours of study and work and then arrived and showed that nothing was happening, and laughed and played as if it were easy. It was my strategy
Prepare the menu for the final at the Celler de Can Roca
-Why that choice of dishes? The judges said that you made the most complete dish that has ever been made on MasterChef.
-I ate my brain from the moment they told us to start thinking about the menu to all the contestants who had reached chapter 9. And that’s what I started to do, I put my head in the deep end with the idea of what I wanted to tell them, what ingredients I wanted to use, what was important to me. Then when I had the chance to get to the Celler de Can Roca, which is a wonderful restaurant, I told them about the work I had previously done, the speech I had already planned, the line where I wanted to go. We went around together with these dishes that allowed me to finish the speech. I thought about it 500 times until one day I told Santiago, my husband, I have it. I have it clear and it is round.
-What is the call that has made you most excited?
-The first few hours I couldn’t see the phone, but the first call I made at 3 in the morning was to my mother. I didn’t talk to my friends, they must think that my fame went to my head because I didn’t respond to messages.
-After this, your idea is to continue in Spain? Laura has a huge journey in Spain in whatever you propose.
-Oh darling, I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’m sure wonderful things are coming. For now I’m going to Bogot to record the second and third seasons of Manes. It’s two months of recording and then I’ll return. There is a project that has me very tied to Spain, which is Feroz, my makeup line, a project that I love and that we have in El Corte Ingls points of sale. More projects at the acting level, cinema, divine things will surely come out.
