Below Deck Down Under introduced a franchise first with a weevil and maggot infestation in the kitchen.
During the season 3 premiere on Monday, February 3, Chef Tzarina Mace-Ralph and sous chef Anthony Bird were in for a surprise while cleaning the Katina for their first charter.
“We have got proper weevils and maggots,” Tzarina told Anthony after inspecting the pantry. “We need to get this bit out as soon as possible. Should we have a look at the dry stuff for a minute? [More] weevils. It’s always f—ing something.”
Anthony said there was “no excuse” for a boat to have bugs, adding, “There’s f—ing loads of them.” In a confessional, Tzarina discussed how “gross” it was before she flagged the issue to Captain Jason Chambers.
“The chef before obviously wasn’t cleaning properly and we have an infestation of weevils and maggots,” she explained while showing Jason, 52, the issue. “All these tubs have them.”
After inspecting the situation, Jason told Tzarina to trash “any grains” on board. “Everything has to come off,” he noted. “The guests are coming in 12 hours and now we have a whole full clean to do. Not a good start.”
Jason spoke exclusively with Us Weekly about the incident, saying, “We have inspections every month. There’s no reason why that should be there, especially when we’ve had a good handover from the previous crew,” he said before the premiere. “We had to lean out the galley and get it ready for the provisions that are coming in the next day. We had to get ready for the guests two days later to find that and to be 12 hours behind in preparation was just not the start we wanted.”
While Jason has seen some gross things on board, he called the maggots the worst of it. “Most things don’t go past that,” he quipped. “And having my hands in the toilet in season 1.”
Later in the episode, Tzarina and Anthony worked together to throw away most of the food — except an opened bottle of vodka that she put back in the fridge.
“I have to chuck everything away and I have to make sure there are no eggs laid everywhere. I need to bleach everything,” she shared in a confessional. “The yacht standard means that charter guests won’t get a little bug in their pasta salad.”
Season 3 of the hit Bravo series reunited Jason, Tzarina and fellow alum and deckhand Harry Van Vliet. They were joined by newbies bosun Wihan Du Toit, chief stew Lara Rigby, deckhands Johnny Arvanitis and Adair Werley and stews Brianna Duffield and Marina Marcondes de Barros.
Despite getting off to a rocky start, the crew was able to pull it together by the time the guests arrived. New issues surfaced once Tzarina and Lara worked their first breakfast service — to lackluster results.
Tzarina was annoyed with Lara after the chief stew allowed the guests to order anything they wanted. This overwhelmed Tzarina, who was forced to cook multiple different dishes at a moment’s notice.
“This is what I was worried about with Lara. You come to the head chef and ask how you would like breakfast to be done,” Tzarina told the cameras. “You don’t just go up and do your own thing. I need it to be my way to get the flow going.”
Anthony, however, was also frustrated after realizing he wasn’t allowed to help with the cooking.
“You need to utilize me a bit more, I think. I am just finding it a little bit chaotic and I normally work a little bit more organized,” he told Tzarina at the end of the episode. “It just starts to become overwhelming and there is s— everywhere. We can definitely make plans and structures to make it easier. But we need to work as a team.”
Footage showed Lara crying in her cabin over Tzarina’s criticism. Meanwhile, the chef was annoyed by Anthony’s feedback.
“Are you f—ing joking? Lara has caused me 10 times the amount of work and now I have a new sous chef being a total twat,” Tzarina added. “I need him to support me as a sous chef, which is a position second to the chef.”
Below Deck Down Under airs on Bravo Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
