HP Grad Takes the Heat on Fox’s ‘MasterChef’

Scott McKinnon had 45 minutes to cook a signature dish for Gordon Ramsay on Fox’s MasterChef: Generations. And he wasn’t playing it safe.

The self-taught 1988 Highland Park grad chose a meal professional chefs hesitate to tackle — mustard-fried venison backstrap with mashed potatoes, green beans, and a southern cream gravy.

“This backstrap is a really tough protein to get right,” Ramsay warned McKinnon. “And you know, if that’s not cooked properly it’s going to be tough as old boots, right?”

“Heard,” McKinnon responded. “I’ve got a good method to handle it, I hope.” 

With his wife and two daughters cheering him on, McKinnon got back to work.

McKinnon, a former baseball and football standout at Highland Park who played Division I football at TCU, said MasterChef was “the first time in 25 or 30 years that I really had the pregame jitters.” He drew on his experience as an athlete to channel his energy and continue to compete.

Cooking, he said, is in his blood. His great-grandfather was a restauranteur from 1913 to 1940, and McKinnon Street in downtown Dallas is named for him. 

Though cooking was the younger McKinnon’s passion, and family and friends encouraged him to open a restaurant, the timing was never right. It wasn’t until his daughters were grown and McKinnon had spent 30 years in sales and marketing that he started working as a private chef.

McKinnon was still spending about 95% of his time as a sales and marketing consultant when, on a rainy weekend in February 2023, he was watching MasterChef with his dogs and decided to apply to be on the show.

The casting producers called in June 2023. McKinnon spent the next six months competing to be one of the 40 out of 40,000 applicants to be featured. Last November, he heard he was in the top 100 and was flown to L.A. The contenders were gradually cut, first to 80, then to 60, and finally to the 40 featured on the show.

McKinnon needed yes votes from three of the show’s four judges to earn an apron and progress beyond the first round.

Ramsay decided after tasting McKinnon’s dish that it was “cooked beautifully,” and gave him a yes. But two of the other three judges weren’t sure about the dish, and McKinnon left without an apron. 

“This is just a bump in the road,” he said after the judging, “and I’m going to keep going.”

Post MasterChef, McKinnon has shifted to spending about 95% of his time as a private chef, and has traveled around the country to create unique culinary events for clients. 

He’s also started setting a new menu weekly and cooking several nights a week at Roots & Water Private Wine Club in Southlake. Recently, McKinnon qualified for the semi-finals of Chef Carla Hall’s Favorite Chef competition, which began with 86,000 contestants from around the world. 

This Thanksgiving, he’ll take his “playbook menu,” which includes an “amazing” truffle butter rib eye with cauliflower puree, grilled asparagus, and crispy shallots and beets, to AT&T Stadium, where he’ll be the Celebrity Chef for the Dallas Cowboys when they take on the Giants.

MasterChef, McKinnon said, has left him with new lifelong friends and the confidence that he’s on the right path. 

“The largest growth always comes when you step out of your comfort zone,” he said. “And that’s really hard to do.”