We are coming to the end of MasterChef Australia, so that means that we are just days away from finding out who wins the competition.
The 18th season started out with 24 cooks, who showcased their skills in the kitchen, but now, it’s only down to two.
Now, it makes us wonder – who will win the $250,000 prize?
Now, one of the finalists has weighed in.
Scroll down to find out what they told us.
Who is in the MasterChef Australia 2026 final?
The MasterChef 2026 finale is set to air on Sunday, August 9, where Vinnie Gibaldi and Petro Papathomas will go head-to-head for the top prize.
Going into the finale, Vinnie tells New Idea that Petro, who is one of his close friends, is stiff competition.
He modestly admits that Petro has one strength that could see him hold the upper hand in the 2026 final.
“Petro is a ripping good cook,” he states to New Idea. “He knows flavours very, very well and he likes playing around like really funky ingredients which is awesome. He’s also very, very good at desserts.”
“So, I that’s where he’s kind of got the upper hand to me, I think.”
Even though Vinnie has impressed the judges with desserts, he acknowledges that they aren’t something he usually eats.
“When there were challenges where we had to do dessert, I felt like a little bit out of my depth, but I don’t know, like every day I’d go home and I’d like reflect on what the judges had told me, what the feedback was that they’d given me, as well as everyone else’s,” he says.
“And like whenever I’d go home and try and like conceptualise a dish, I was kind of stuck in that mindset when I was just like a home cook type of thing.”
“When I think of something to cook and it’s just super rustic, super basic… in the semi-final, my dish may have looked a little bit rustic, but the flavours in that were things that I would not have even known how to do when I first entered this competition,” he continues.
While he thinks Petro is one to beat, eliminated contestant Annabel Lloyd tells New Idea that Vinnie can win it.
“I think Vinnie’s improved the most, and a lot of seasons I’ve watched previously, whoever improved the most can often be the winner,” she tells us.
“If you compare Vinnie at day one to Vinnie now, like he’s probably made the largest improvement out of all the contestants.”
Just after he was sent home, Luke Harris also gave us some interesting behind-the-scenes intel.
While he believes all the remaining contestants have what it takes to take out the competition, he’d love to see his roommate Petro Papathomas win, saying there’s more to him than what’s being shown.
“He’s one of the hardest workers in the competition,” he exclusively told New Idea, adding that he was always up tirelessly honing in on his skills.
Luke also added that Petro already had plenty of skills to draw on during the early days of the competition, and has only improved since then.
Given they have a preexisting friendship, he might be biased, but many fans agree, labelling Petro a top contender from the very start!
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