Meet MasterChef Australia 2023’s Adi Nevgi — The Doctor & Self-Taught Home Cook Who’s Visited 55 Countries

MasterChef Australia is known for showcasing a diverse range of cuisines. As she enters the competition in 2023, Adi Nevgi hopes to demonstrate her knowledge of different flavours from around the world.

The 31-year-old doctor has visited a whopping 55 countries, and uses her travels to inform her experimentation in the kitchen. She also has a deep love for her ancestral Indian cuisine, and prefers cooking savoury dishes over sweet.

With a background in general medicine and endocrinology, Nevgi enjoys understanding the science behind food, and uses cooking as a way to get in touch with her more creative side.

So far, she's been largely self-taught, using cookbooks, websites and cooking shows to enhance her knowledge and skills in the kitchen. She's also started writing her own cookbook, a ‘how-to guide’ on cooking basics.

In a post shared on her Instagram account before the launch of Season 15, Nevgi told her followers that appearing on MasterChef meant that she was "living out a goal" of hers.

She is one of 18 new faces on the show this year, different to last year's season MasterChef Australia: Fans & Favourites, which featured 12 returning contestants from previous seasons and 12 amateur home cooks.

The other contestants are Alice Han, Amy Tanner, Andrea Puglisi, Antonio Cruz Vaamonde, Brent Draper, Cath Collins, Declan Cleary, Grace Jupp, Jessica Perri, Larissa Sewell, Malissa Fedele, Phil Conway, Ralph Kahango, Rhiannon Anderson, Robbie Cooper, Rue Mupedzi and Theo Loizou.

In addition to MasterChef judges Melissa Leong, Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo (who recently passed away), this year there's a star-studded lineup of guest judges including Jamie Oliver, Curtis Stone, Maggie Beer, Rick Stein and Peter Gilmore.