Sofia Levin says producers had been sliding into her DMs for 10 years, asking her to join MasterChef Australia as a contestant. She said no. Now in her third year on the judging panel, the food and travel journalist has explained why the contestant route never fit, even as the show kept circling back.
Levin's 10-year response
“Over the past 10 years, I’ve had producers slide into my DMs and ask me if I wanted to go on as a contestant,” Levin said. “It’s just as well I said no, because who knows where that would have led me. I do like cooking, but I don’t like cooking when there’s a giant clock hanging over me!”
That answer now reads like a clean pivot point in her career. Levin is in her third year judging alongside Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow and Jean-Christophe Novelli, which puts her on the other side of the format she kept declining.
From DM pitches to the panel
Levin said the show feels like a place she belongs professionally. “In the third-place theory, there’s home, there’s work and then there’s meant to be a third place where you can go to collect yourself and feel comfortable,” she said. “But, when you work in food, in restaurants and cafés and on MasterChef, your second and third places combine. I don’t need a third place – this is everything I need to fill my cup.”
The contrast is simple: she was repeatedly invited to compete, but she ended up judging. For a series built around pressure, that shift matters because it shows Levin arrived at the panel through familiarity with the show’s world, not through a single contestant run that could have sent her career somewhere else.
Life after Greg's death
Levin also said 2024 changed her personally, after her father Greg died of motor neurone disease. She now serves as an ambassador for MND Victoria and has hosted two charity events, adding a public cause to a role that is otherwise centered on television and food.
That work runs beside her private life, which she has kept largely out of view. She said, “I reconnected with someone from school,” after not seeing him much for about 20 years, and that they became engaged over a year ago. “I will start looking into that when we’ve finished filming,” she said of wedding planning, so MasterChef filming still sets the pace for what comes next.
