Meet MasterChef Australia 2023’s Alice Han — The Harvard Grad Who Wows Jamie Oliver With Her Own Food Invention

The new season is called MasterChef Australia: Secrets and Surprises, and contestant Alice Han promises to play to the theme.

As one of the top 18 contestants on the show this year, Alice is set to cook up a storm in season 15, with some personal tricks up her sleeve. A new promo for the Channel 10 program shows her whipping up a unique dish for judges Melissa Leong, Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo, as well as guest judge Jamie Oliver.

Not only is this a dish one of her own special recipes, but she's hoping to merge two big parts of her life when creating it.

"I studied history and economics at Harvard and Stanford," the contestant says, before explaining to the judges that she's brought her analytical and creative talents to the MasterChef kitchen — and hopes this translates into the dish.

"So much of my work is the brain," she tells them, "and food is the heart. And I would love to have married the two."

The final scene of this sneak peek hints that Alice's dish has wowed the judges, with Oliver claiming he's "never had anything like that before".

Alice will no doubt be one to watch this season, with Channel 10 describing the academic as "multilingual clever cookie" in a press kit, and as someone who's keen to enter the culinary field as a cook, writer and entrepreneur.

While last year's season titled MasterChef Australia: Fans & Favourites featured 12 returning contestants from previous seasons and 12 amateur home cooks, the 2023 season returns to the original format featuring new faces to Aussie TV. This year there will only be 18 aprons up for grabs, that will give contenders the opportunity to cook in mystery box challenges, compete for immunity pins, and receive feedback from the show's esteemed judges.

They are Adi Nevgi, 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 Leong, Allen and 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.

"I’m very, very excited to be back in the MasterChef Australia kitchen, and honoured to be kicking off the new season of Secrets & Surprises alongside Jock, Andy and Mel," Oliver said in an official press statement.

"I want to give the contestants some little nuggets of advice, some techniques and some thoughts most importantly, that might help them to navigate some of the big moments ahead."

With the theme of this year's show being 'secrets and surprises', we can expect some twists and turns along the way. Get ready for colossal lamington towers, exploding confetti mystery boxes and lots more.

MasterChef Australia: Secrets & Surprises will premiere on Sunday, May 7 at 7:30pm on Channel 10, following a special edition of The Sunday Project which will pay tribute to Jock Zonfrillo from 6:30pm.