What Jesse And Jessica Have Been Up To After Winning MasterChef: Dynamic Duos

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Well, the cat's out of the bag: Jesse Rosenwald and Jessica Bosworth are the official champions of "MasterChef: Dynamic Duos," taking home the crown (or, well, apron) after the first-of-its-kind season of the cooking competition show. Season 15 of MasterChef veered from the show's typical structure to make it a "duo" competition for the first time, and many of the challenges tested how well each duo worked together in the kitchen. Jessica and Jesse flowed with each other near seamlessly throughout the season, and it was fairly mesmerizing to watch.

But of course, the road to winning MasterChef wasn't easy. The duo lost the initial audition, only to come back after winning a second chance challenge — from there, the show's trials got even harder, all the way up to that nail-biter of a finale. Life on the other side of the competition seems blissful for the duo, who has quite a few plans on the horizon. Yes, you'll probably be able to taste some of their own creations soon, and even visit a couple shop locations in the future. We caught up with MasterChef winners Jessica and Jesse following the finale; here's what's next for them, as well as an inside look at some of their time on the competition show. 

Jesse and Jessica have some immediate plans that have actually been in the works since Covid times, and a launch seems fairly imminent. Their business concept is called "10 Inches Pizza," and they aim to put an artisanal twist on South Shore pizza, famous for its delicious pan-baked crust. The concept is partially a product of the duo's hometown roots. Jessica told us, "We both grew up in New England, specifically on the South Shore of Massachusetts. And on the South Shore, we do bar pizza. So it's a specific style of pizza where it's in a 10-inch pan and it's more of a buttery, crackery, biscuity crust versus your traditional Neapolitan ... We just recently started par cooking, cryovaccing, freezing, and we want to sell to everyone now."

Jesse noted that cryovacced (vacuum-sealed) South Shore bar pizzas aren't necessarily a new invention, but that the duo's concept will reinvent it to appeal to specialty food enthusiasts. "We're kind of trying to emulate that. Our style, though, [is] a little bit more artisanal," he said. It's not totally clear when (or where) the product will be launching yet, but we'd guess that natives to Massachusetts can expect to see it in the not-too-distant future; if you don't want to miss any breaking 10 Inches Pizza news, keep an eye on the business's official Instagram page. 

Aside from the coming launch of 10 Inches Pizza, Jessica and Jesse have other dreams that they're hoping to bring to fruition in the future. Particularly, the duo would love to start a couple brick-and-mortar locations, and they have some working concepts in mind. Specialty food connoisseurs will be excited to hear about one of their ideas; Jesse said the duo has "dreams to open up a Italian provision shop that will get imported goods from Italy." 

Additionally, you may see a sandwich shop run by the two sometime in the future. Jesse and Jessica are both avid hikers and, of course, nothing is better after (or during!) a long hike than a good meal — their restaurant would cater to hikers' appetites. Jesse told us, "We'll have an artisanal sandwich shop called Peak Eats, which is based around our love of hiking. So things you might want to bring to the top of the peak, eat, hike back down." Of course, the sandwiches will be nourishing as well as flavor-packed; Jesse called Jessica "the sauce queen," and says the couple is so excited to share their love of food with the world.

After we caught up about what's next for Jessica and Jesse, we couldn't resist getting some insider info about the show's run and all the couple's highs and lows. Arguably all of the challenges on MasterChef are difficult, but we were curious as to whether any challenge gave them a particularly hard time. Their answer was immediate, unanimous, and somewhat unexpected on our part: "Yeah, follow Gordon."

This season's Follow Gordon challenge threw another wrench into the equation: It was a tag-team challenge, where the couple alternated who was cooking every five minutes. Jesse said that the tag-team style "[M]ade it even harder because you'd be in a groove, and then you're like, "Good," and then boom, you have to switch." It's also the only untimed challenge, which sounds like an asset until you realize you're trying to keep up with hard-to-please Ramsay, one of the world's best chefs. "It's him, right? So at least when you have a parameter, 'I have a half hour. Okay, 10 minutes to score the duck breast. Okay, 15 minutes to get this puree.' No, you had none of that. It was just go, go, go the whole time," Jesse explained. 

Of course, learning opportunities are abundant in the competition, especially given the difficulty of the challenges and the "MasterChef" judges' ruthless critique. All of the judges were full of advice, and Jessica and Jesse took all of it to heart. Rather than focusing on the positive notes they got after a challenge, the duo took the criticism very seriously. Jesse said, "[Let's] say there was five or six positives, but one or two negatives ... the negatives were the ones that we talked about when we got home." Jessica adds that "finesse" was incredibly important to Gordon Ramsay.

However, possibly the biggest piece of advice they got may seem counterintuitive to those who watch the show. The couple recounts an unaired clip where Ramsay yells, "Less is more, Jessica!" and they say the "less is more" mantra was a constant theme throughout the show. "You want to put everything on the plate and impress, but sometimes you don't need to. You can edit out a couple of ingredients and then the dish sings even more from that. So that was a very valuable takeaway," Jessica told us. 

Of course, we couldn't leave the conversation without talking about the couple's huge comeback. After losing their initial audition, Jesse and Jessica were brought back into the competition when they won a second chance challenge in the second episode. Their initial audition was arguably a close call — both of the duos cooked impressive dishes, but Michelle and Zach just edged them out. Rather than being discouraged by this, Jesse and Jessica talked about how they used it as motivation to give the rest of the season their all. Jesse said, "[Once] we were told we were getting the second chance, we were like, 'We're not letting this go. We are going to do our best.'"

Jessica adds a surprising note of appreciation for their initial loss. "Actually, losing the audition battle was the best thing that could've happened to us during this competition. It was a huge blow, it was heartbreaking, but it lit a fire in us ... and we just, we took it, and we ran with it, and completely immersed ourselves in the competition. We lived and breathed that competition from that point forward." Both Jesse and Jessica suggest that they couldn't have won the competition without that initial loss; the fire it lit in them was invaluable to their eventual success.