EXCLUSIVE: The contestant-turned-judge spills on their exciting new venture.

A former MasterChef contestant has announced they’re becoming a judge. Photos: Channel 10

Since its premiere in 2009, MasterChef Australia has launched countless careers in the food industry. In addition to the 15 winners (including two-time champion Billie McKay) who walked away with the $250,000 prize money, contestants have gone on to write cookbooks, host TV shows, and open restaurants both locally and internationally.

Some participants have even become MasterChef judges around the world, with Andy Allen and Poh Ling Yeow currently fronting the Australian series, and Audra Morrice appearing on both MasterChef Singapore and MasterChef Asia. It was recently announced that another former contestant would be added to this exclusive group, with Savindri ‘Sav’ Perera joining the judging panel on MasterChef Sri Lanka.

Sav, who finished third in season 16 and recently returned for Back To Win, will appear alongside fellow chefs Peter Kuruvita, Rohan Fernandopulle, and Dushantha Jayasinghe in the upcoming series.

The 31-year-old former banking consultant tells Yahoo Lifestyle she was first contacted by Peter about the opportunity shortly after she finished filming MasterChef earlier this year, and was “completely gobsmacked”.

“It was an immediate yes, but also it was kind of like, what am I getting myself into? It’s a huge thing,” she remarks. “The mental space that I went to was just severe impostor syndrome, so that was very intimidating for me. But then I got to meet the production team, the director, and had a chat, and I decided, ‘Okay, I think this is what I want to do for the next couple of years, at least’.”

Savindri ‘Sav’ Perera has been announced as a judge on MasterChef Sri Lanka. Photo: Channel 10

‘It’s truly quite humbling’

While Sav initially questioned whether she was the right person for the role, especially considering it’s only been a year since she first competed on MasterChef, her friends and fellow contestants-turned-judges, Poh and Audra, filled her with confidence.

“I know Sri Lankan food, and I know my culture so intimately, and actually, I’m positioned really well. I speak the languages fluently, and I communicate really well,” she shares.

“When I spoke to the contestants for the first time, I said to them, I’m your biggest ally that you’re ever going to have, because the other three guys are veteran, trained professional chefs that have over 100 years of experience between the three of them. My view is always going to be shaped by the fact that I’ve been a contestant, and I understand that so intimately.”

She adds that while competing on MasterChef is challenging, it’s “surreal” knowing that she now holds “one quarter of the power to change someone’s life”.

“It’s truly quite humbling to realise that that power, that responsibility now rests within me, so it’s not something I take lightly,” she says.

Sav will appear on the judging panel alongside Dushantha Jayasinghe, Peter Kuruvita, and Rohan Fernandopulle. Photo: Instagram/savisquishles

What do we know about MasterChef Sri Lanka?

MasterChef Sri Lanka will be the 72nd international adaptation of the competitive cooking show format, which originated with the British version in 1990. Sav shares that they received over a thousand applications for the inaugural season, and filming will officially kick off “in a couple of months”.

“We’ve got a big pool of, I think, around 80 contestants. They’ll go through a boot camp process like the earlier seasons of MasterChef Australia, and we’ll sort of whittle it down to the top 24,” she explains.

Will MasterChef Sir Lanka air in Australia?

Sav reveals that the series will “hopefully” premiere in November with around 30 episodes, and they’re making sure it will be available to watch in Australia.

“There’s a huge diaspora of Sri Lankans in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, so we’ve got a digital platform, and it’s going to be in all three languages of Sri Lanka, so English, Sinhala and Tamil,” she shares. “There’s also going to be a lot of drama. Sri Lankans love drama! We love a tear, we love a dramatic exit, we love a bit of that.”