What MasterChef judge died? The news came the day before his new season was due to premiere
Jock Zonfrillo, one of the three judges on MasterChef Australia, was found dead in a Melbourne hotel in the early hours of 30 April 2023. He was 46. Season 15 — which he had already filmed — was scheduled to premiere the following night.
The timing
Zonfrillo had recently moved his family to Italy and was back in Australia alone, on a promotional run for the new season. He was due to do a string of press before and after the premiere. Police called to Zagame's House on Lygon Street in Carlton for a welfare check found nothing suspicious.
Network 10 pulled the season from broadcast. It eventually premiered on 7 May 2023, a week late.
What the coroner decided
The Coroners Court of Victoria completed a 16-month investigation in August 2024 and then chose not to publish its findings — a decision a coroner can make when non-publication is considered in the public interest. Reporting at the time noted he had been treated for bowel cancer after a 2021 diagnosis, kept private from colleagues.
The formal cause of death has never been made public.
Who he was
- Glasgow, then Turnberry — born to an Italian father and Scottish mother, apprenticed at the Turnberry Hotel at 15.
- Marco Pierre White's kitchen — working there by 17.
- Restaurant Orana, Adelaide — his most awarded venture, built around native Australian ingredients.
- MasterChef from 2019 — joining Andy Allen and Melissa Leong when Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, and Matt Preston all left at once.
He was survived by his wife Lauren Fried and four children. Fried published a memoir, Till Death Do Us Part, after announcing it in December 2024.
The panel afterwards
Leong left to host Dessert Masters, so series 16 in 2024 rebuilt the panel around Andy Allen with three new judges: series one runner-up Poh Ling Yeow, French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, and food writer Sofia Levin. Four judges instead of three, a first since 2011. The same quartet has presented every series since, including series 18, which began on 19 April 2026.
Worth noting for anyone who arrived here from a British search: the MasterChef judges who left the UK version in 2025, Gregg Wallace and John Torode, are alive and were sacked. Different show, different story.