MasterChef Australia: Judges and 16 Winners

No baking or cooking competition anywhere has had a messier, more talked-about judging panel than MasterChef Australia. Since its 2009 debut, the show has been through three completely different judging eras, one triggered by a very public pay dispute and another by the sudden death of a judge, and each shake-up became news well beyond the show's usual audience.

The original trio, 2009 to 2019

Restaurateur Gary Mehigan, chef George Calombaris, and food critic Matt Preston judged the show from its first series in 2009. Julie Goodwin won that first season, and the trio became the faces of the franchise for the next decade, through eleven series. In 2019, all three walked away from the show simultaneously following a pay dispute with the network, Channel Ten, ending the longest-serving judging panel in the show's history in one move.

The second era, 2019 to 2023

Andy Allen, who had won the show himself as a contestant in series 4, stepped into a judging chair alongside food critic Melissa Leong and chef Jock Zonfrillo. This panel judged series 12 through 15. Zonfrillo died on April 30, 2023, shortly before series 15 finished airing, making it the final series to feature him as a judge.

The current panel, 2024 onward

Series 16, which aired in 2024, brought in food writer Sofia Levin, French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, and Poh Ling Yeow, the runner-up from the very first series in 2009, returning as a judge rather than a contestant.

Why the 2019 walkout mattered

The simultaneous departure of Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, and Matt Preston was not a quiet cast change; it made national news in Australia and forced the production to rebuild its entire on-screen identity mid-franchise, something almost no other version of MasterChef, or most competition shows generally, has had to do after a decade of continuity. Bringing in a former winner, Andy Allen, as a judge rather than another outside chef was a deliberate signal that the show wanted continuity with its own history even as the faces changed completely, and that instinct carried through to the 2024 panel, which brought back Poh Ling Yeow from the very first season rather than starting over with three unfamiliar names.

Standout winners

Julie Goodwin remains the answer to the "who won season 1" question and went on to a long career of cookbooks and television work. Andy Allen's path from series 4 champion to judge is one of the more unusual arcs in reality competition television anywhere. Laura Sharrad's 2025 win came on her third appearance on the show, in a dedicated "Back to Win" returning-champions season, a format twist that let past contestants who had never quite reached the top compete again with years of professional growth behind them, something the flagship American and British baking formats have rarely attempted at this scale. Melissa Leong's tenure as the show's first Asian-Australian judge, from series 12 through 15, also marked a notable shift in the panel's makeup after eleven years of an all-male original trio.

How it compares

MasterChef Australia runs on the same mystery-box, invention-test format as its American counterpart, and our MasterChef US fan guide covers that version's own long-running panel changes. What sets the Australian version apart is the emotional register: it leans warmer and more collaborative than the American show's confrontational style, closer in spirit to the tone the Great British Bake Off built its whole identity on, just with savory cooking and a much higher prize pool.

If you like this, watch these next

MasterChef Australia does not have a compiled season hub on this site the way the flagship American version does, so the shows directory is the place to browse the rest of the franchise. Two other national versions worth knowing are covered in our guides to MasterChef Canada and MasterChef India, both run on the same format under very different judging cultures. For the wider landscape, see our roundup of the best baking shows to stream.