He may have worked at a 3 Michelin star restaurant, and under undoubtedly one of the world’s finest culinary minds in Heston Blumenthal, but Gareth Whitton is best known for his delectable tarts.

His booming business, Tarts Anon, was born amid Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. When restaurants were forced to close their doors, pastry guru Gareth stacked supermarket shelves to make ends meet, but there was a lot of free time for baking. He began making tarts for his neighbours and things snowballed. The tarts often sold out amongst his local neighbourhood before word soon spread further afield.

Dubbed ‘the cult tarts that Melbourne didn’t know it needed’, Gareth is the creative genius behind the lauded eatery, while his life and business partner Cat is head of tart logistics. With a menu of flavours rotating monthly, tarts come by the slice, half or whole, and the business now boasts two retail outlets and almost 20 staff. There is a cookbook in the works too.

Gareth got his entrée into hospitality washing dishes aged 14, before starting his apprenticeship at 18. He worked his way up the kitchen ranks both at home and abroad, with stints at three Michelin starred restaurant Oud Sluis (Netherlands), Dinner by Heston (London), as well as Sydney’s Quay and Melbourne’s famed Lune. He served as Pastry Sous Chef at Melbourne’s Dinner by Heston for three years, before being promoted to Head Pastry Chef, where he remained for a further 18 months.

Having set a Pressure Test during MasterChef Australia Season 14 – his Smoked Pecan and Butterscotch Tart – Gareth is now relishing the opportunity to be on the other side of the bench and enters the Dessert Masters kitchen ready to prove that he is so much more than just the king of tarts.

With his fine dining pedigree and a slew of finessed techniques up his sleeve, Gareth loves a challenge and plans to give the competition everything he’s got, and then some.