Meet the ex-contestants returning for the ultimate cook-off in MasterChef Australia: Back To Win 2025

Despite returning to the kitchen for the seventeenth season of MasterChef, Andre admittedly hasn’t cooked “in a long time.”

“As I developed these businesses, it took me away from the kitchen. I delegate a lot, it’s been less hands-on. It’s more about managing people and numbers,” he confessed to The Sunday Mail.

“Now I just want to concentrate on cooking again and have some fun—that’s my main agenda.”

“The day I walked into the kitchen, 
it all came flooding back to me. I remembered how incredible this experience was the first time around,” Audra confessed to TV WEEK. “The impact of it changed my life.”

After finishing third in season four, Audra pivoted from telecommunications to a TV career,
as a celebrated judge on MasterChef Singapore and MasterChef Asia. Despite this experience, Audra affirmed it doesn’t “give you a leg up” like fans may believe.

Since placing fifth in season fifteen, the Victorian mum has transformed her passion for food into a lifestyle, launching Cath’s Kitchen, where she runs inclusive cooking classes. Returning for season seventeen, Cath describes herself as a “wiser, calmer cook.”

“I think that perhaps I put too much pressure on myself last time,” she recalled to TV WEEK. “Whereas this time I’m just going in to meet all the other contestants, learn from them and hang out.”