MasterChef judge Sofia Levin describes her job as “probably the ultimate gig in food in Australia — if not the world”.
The beloved judge joined the cooking juggernaut in 2024, as part of a new judging panel.
“It’s pretty incredible to be part of not just the judging panel but the entire competition and the history of the competition because it’s just so deeply loved,” the star told Chattr in a July 2024 interview.
But fabulous food aside, just what makes Sofia Levin tick? And what do we know about her life?
Read more about her below.
How old is Sofia Levin?
Sofia Levin is 35 years old, but rewind 13 years, and she was working as an up-and-coming journalist and blogger.
One of her gigs was contributing to an article in BeanScene about the influence social media was having on cafe preferences, before finding fame on MasterChef.
“It’s wild. It’s still not real as far as I’m concerned. I keep waiting for it to stop feeling like a ‘pinch me moment’, and so far it hasn’t happened,” Levin told that same publication after being named as a MasterChef judge.
Indeed, a career in food was never really part of Sofia Levin’s plan. She studied marketing and psychology at university for a year and a half before deciding to take a semester off to backpack around Europe for nine months with a mate.
“We loved it. We went and did all the cultural stuff and saw so much of Europe, so by the time we had done a clockwise loop and popped over to Morocco from Spain, it was like we had entered a different world,” the star told BeanScene.
“It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I was really affected by that experience and the night markets, the people, and how interesting the food was.”
It was at that point that Levin thought, “maybe I can do this as a job”.
“I didn’t know what that meant or how it looked, but I figured journalism was probably the best way to do it. I sought the lifestyle before the study,” she revealed.
Back in Australia, Levin swapped the marketing component of her course for journalism subjects before starting a food blog to impress her tutor.
It ended up giving her a portfolio of work that led to freelancing opportunities.
“I didn’t set out to write about cafés, restaurants, or food. I just wanted to write about the things I enjoyed, which was the way food opens minds and doors, rather than wanting to be a journalist who writes about food,” Sofia told BeanScene.
“It was amazing timing because as I started to write about the places I visited, everybody was starting to become more interested in food, wine and the city’s coffee scene, and Melbourne was creeping up as one of the major players in the world. It was also around the same time MasterChef started, so it’s all extremely linked.”
Levin went on to start her own website, Seasoned Traveller – a “place to feed on restaurants that rarely see the limelight and read food stories with soul”.
Is Sofia Levin in a relationship?
In March 2026, the judge told our sister publication TV Week that she was engaged to a childhood friend.
“I reconnected with someone from school,” she revealed.
“We hadn’t really seen each other much for about 20 years. That was over a year ago now, which is wonderful. We’re engaged, which is not a secret.”
She then went on to gush about her fiancé.
“He’s a beautiful person and an amazing support. And he just totally gets me, which is so lovely. We’ve just gone through a house renovation, which feels very adult,” she told the publication.
Before this, she was previously engaged to Epic Pizza owner Matt John.
“One proposal, two countries, three weeks & countless meals later — I said yes to a lifetime of sharing adventures. 💍” she wrote in May 2016 when she announced the news, alongside a snap of the pair at the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico.
Another post from September 2017 suggests Johns and Levin actually tied the knot in Lombok, although it has not been confirmed. It’s believed they split sometime in 2021.
Following this, there was speculation that Levin was dating wine importer Will Dyer – with Levin tagging the La Carta Wine owner in a series of Instagram snaps in August and September 2023.
Famously, she also had to deny rumours she was dating Today Show star Karl Stefanovic, after she was erroneously linked to him after his split from ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn.
“It’s not true at all, we’re just friends,” Levin told Woman’s Day, of the speculation at the time, which came after she’d appeared on a Today Show segment alongside celebrity chef Luke Mangan.
“We’re just mates and have stayed in contact since that shoot,” she added.
What happened to Sofia Levin’s dad?
She openly shared her grief after the death of her father, Greg, from Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in July 2024.
“Five days without the best person I’ve ever known. The burden of enormous love is that when someone dies, the sorrow is proportional,” Levin wrote alongside a poignant carousel of photographs.
“Our family has never missed an ‘I love you’ or left anything unsaid. Despite dad’s MND diagnosis in January 2022, we have travelled, laughed and held each other tightly,” she went on.
“I feel indescribably lucky to have had 34 years of Greg as my father. We shared more than most could ever dream of in twice that. Lots of people think they have the best dad or the best husband; the difference with our family is that everyone else thought that about Greg, too.”
The star described a conversation she’d had with her father and family in the months before his death, where he spoke about what he would like to come back as when he passed away.
“When it came to dad’s turn, he said without hesitation, from his wheelchair, ‘I’d come back as me’,” she revealed.
“The hardest part about dad not being here is that we know how much he loved his life. He didn’t believe in heaven, but in his memoir, published just before he died, he wrote: ‘My family and my friends, that’s heaven for me.’ He was our heaven, too.”
